Nycthemeron
by Laces Kai
Summary: Edward and Bella are going on a trip, and Nessie is almost fully grown but almost leaves room for the last bit of growing pains. A story about the chain of events based on Nessie's rebellious bout, her half human rebellion and half vampire newborn years.
1. Preparation

Nycthemeron

_An account of events based on the characters of the Twilight Saga_

**Preparation**

Bella

_Everybody likes to go their own way—to choose their own time and manner of devotion._ – Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

I sat enthralled by the way the morning fog peeled back from the damp earth, my eyes focusing on the individual dewdrops crawling downward on each rose petal. The beauty before me, the ability to see each detail in the seconds of the morning, was breathtaking. I searched my mind for human memories of mornings like this, but everything was so murky that it seemed unlikely I had ever truly experienced the beauty of nature. How had so many other humans been able to see this, experience it, and write it down for generations of prosperity without vampire eyes? I couldn't help but muse that I hadn't understood Emily Dickens words until this moment.

Sighing I looked down towards the complete works of Emily Dickens in my lap, I had been trying to read before the morning interrupted me. I had little luck getting anything accomplished this night and I smiled to myself knowing the morning had not been my first distraction. I let my eyes wander again, this time not to the window but to the room I sat in. A few feet from me laid my only daughter and I had spent most of the night just watching her sleep. Being her mother by fretting over her breathing, her racing heartbeat and soothing her restless body as it dreamed. Renesmee was beautiful awake or asleep, she looked so like the sleeping beauty of the Disney movie from my childhood. A fair skinned maiden with golden hair framing her face perfectly, she laid with beauty that would inspire anyone to fight a dragon. At least she had gotten Edward's ability to look like a runway model all the time, it balanced out the clumsiest that against Darwin persisted in being passed down again in my blood. I tried to focus again on the book, but my eyes resisted and wandered to search the landscape again not because of the morning but because I hoped to see him coming back to me. Edward had been away for the night, hunting with Emmett and Jasper. I had been reluctant to give up our night, Edward and I rarely spent nights apart, but it was only fair that I share. Or so Emmett had reminded me tauntingly.

"It was the nightingale, and not the lark…" I whispered to myself to force my mind to focus on the book. That lasted a whole three seconds, before his scent was around me and his touch sent electrifying shocks to the very core of my body. Leave it to Edward to still startle me.

"It was the lark, the herald of the morn, no nightingale." He laced his fingers into mine and pulled them up to the window glass, pointing our hands together at the horizon. His voice velvet, quieter than whispers to not wake our sleeping beauty.

"Look, love, what envious streaks do lace the serving clouds in yonder east..." Edward was lightly kissing my neck and all hopes of reading were vanished. He kept whispering into my ear, "night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops."

If time still mattered, if I really kept time well at all anymore, it would have stopped. Truthfully time had stopped when I met Edward, because something in the world had graced me. I twisted to allow Edward to sit with me on the window bench and the book fell forgotten to the ground. Our embrace came to a sudden halt when Renesmee stirred in her sleep, loudly enough for us to be reminded that we were in her room.

"We should move down to our bedroom, she is deep in sleep." Edward murmured as he moved to kiss me again. I took in a breath taking in every bit of him inhaling his scent that was mixed with Emmett and bears this morning.

"You hunted bear then?" I laughed. I could feel his lips grin in response to my question.

"Jacob." Renesmee gasped from her bed and in a fluid motion Edward was by her side. I was taken a bit aback by his sudden departure from me and frowned in his direction.

"What…" I started but he pressed his finger to his lips. I watched as he stroked Renesmee's hair softly and quickly in hushed tones hummed in her ear. He hummed the symphony he had composed for her and Jacob last year, a common favorite of hers. She stirred though and her eyes fluttered opened.

"Go back to sleep princess." I heard Edward say in his sly persuasive voice. I smiled, thinking how impossible it was to resist that voice.

"I'm all right daddy." She whispered as she nudged closer to him. Edward kept stroking her hair and let his laugh ring loudly.

"Yes, I will wake you when he arrives. More than likely I'm sure he will wake you." And with that statement Edward hummed softly again until she closed her eyes. I watched calmly, focusing on how Edward and Renesmee's hair could easily be locks of the same head. Suddenly his head moved and he flashed his gleaming teeth at me, I grinned back and he was in front of me without much noise. He held out his hand for me, his intent to remove of us from our sleeping beauty before she startled awake again. We moved past the doorframe and he quickly lifted me to cradle me in his arms.

" I am known to have walked by myself quite well now for at least six years." I struggled against him a bit, mostly in jest because I liked well enough being in his arms.

"And this is still something I get to do." He shrugged at me. My fingers traveled along the seams of his perfectly tailored shirt, one that I was sure Alice had bought and not him as I could smell and feel the expense in it.

"What was she dreaming?" I asked finally breaking my attention from the way the expensive fabric seemed to have been sewn to Edward's chest.

"Apparently she is afraid of Jacob leaving her." Edward frowned.

"Why?" I suddenly clutched at Edward, with all of my might, as I sat up in his arms. He chuckled a bit at my response.

"Are you going to miss him?" He mocked. Knowing my response to the idea of leaving always sparked the same reaction by me. Edward's golden eyes flickered with pain despite his mockery, still feeling responsible for my physical reaction to the idea of abandonment.

"Of course I would miss him, but why would she be afraid of that?" I tried to relax there was no need to make him upset.

"It seems that Seth was telling her stories of Jacob and you yesterday." Edward's jaw clenched.

"Why would stories about…" I started but stopped.

"Yes, it seems in the story telling he touched upon why the two of you spent so much time together. She was curious and asked more about it, and well Seth didn't agree with telling her. But you know Jacob can't deny her anything, even things he doesn't really want to share." Edward's face was hard as stone.

"She thinks he might do the same thing?" I asked, trying desperately to keep the pain out of my own voice at the memories resurfacing about my time without Edward. It was an odd thing how well I could remember that pain, but I had found that any memory about Edward at all had stuck better than anything else from my human existence.

"The stories seemed to scare her into thinking that maybe no matter how much they are meant to be, he might leave her." Edward dropped me at this point, letting me stand on my own two feet. One of his hands held one of mine, and his other arm settled itself around my waist, physically holding onto me.

"Dreams are to work things out remember. I dreamt of you all the time." I sighed. I knew Edward, I knew that at this very moment he was cursing himself, thinking that not only had he caused me a great deal of pain that he could never forgive himself for but even now his actions were causing Renesmee pain.

"About me leaving you?" He asked, looking sternly at me. He was daring me to lie, as if the attempt was even worth it, I was still a terrible liar.

"Yes. Often. Even before…" I didn't finish the thought, but added quickly. "Edward, you often in the beginning," I almost choked the words. "Spoke words that felt like you were trying to say good bye. You know that as well as I. I dreamt many things about you though, my fear of you leaving was only because of how much I couldn't bear it and how much I thought I didn't deserve you." Edward kissed me at this point, an angry kiss.

"I didn't deserve you." He hissed at me, an argument we had at least once a week still but the result never mattered it seemed we would never agree.

"Point being she is meant to dream like that sometimes." I shrugged at him.

"I don't like it when she has nightmares." Edward grumbled.

"Neither do I. And neither does she, but it's the human part in her." I winked. Edward laughed.

"Human indeed. I should talk with Seth about telling her those stories." Edward laughed.

"Leave Seth alone." I warned, pointing my finger into his shirt.

"I have no say in what he does, don't I pay his tuition?" Edward asked feigning severity.

"He doesn't know that." I commented. "And you only did it so that Jacob didn't live in the same house as your hormonal teenage daughter."

"She might be like her mother, in fact she is having her boyfriend sneak into her room when she thinks we aren't listening." Edward scowled.

"What?" I asked. Edward looked over me, towards the staircase and I heard the motorcycle outside and knew Jacob had arrived.

"Apparently Jake is annoyed that I went hunting last night, because he had planned to spend the night with Nessie." Edward growled.

"Why would you hunting stop him?" I demanded, not as annoyed at Jacob spending the night with her as Edward.

"Because when I hunt you spend the night in her room." Edward rolled his eyes, probably at more of Jacob's thoughts.

"He's telling me to stop being such a Hypocrite, because I did the same thing." He informed me and I laughed because Jacob had become increasingly aware of Edward listening to his thoughts. Leave it to Jake to learn how to response to someone without knowing for sure when he was listening. Edward laughed too. He had grown very fond of Jacob. It was a strange relationship for me to watch because now my husband and best friend were more like father and son, Edward taking on a parental interest in the boy who was once one of his greatest sources of jealousy in our relationship ever.

"You need to change the oil in that bike Jake." I heard Rosalie comment downstairs. Rosalie and Jacob had started truly getting along in the last year, as they both built Nessie a car and worked on his bike. It seemed they found that Nessie wasn't their only common factor, and the garage was their refugee when Nessie was otherwise occupied.

"No Seth today?" Emmett sounded like he was wrestling with something, maybe the new boxing game that Seth had let him borrow.

"No. Leah and him were trying to build some cabinet thing when I left." Jake laughed. I smirked thinking of our little pack of wolves. It had been hard on Jacob's pack when he left Forks. It was hard on Jake too though he would never admit it, but they all still communicated when they were wolves and that had been ok for most of them. Everyone except for Leah and Seth, Leah had traveled across country and shown up on our porch two years ago. She had settled here in Hanover, working in town and living in her own apartment refusing to stay in our house as usual. And just this summer, Seth had received a scholarship to attend Dartmouth that he readily accepted. It had all been rather suspicious and I knew then that Edward, Jasper and Emmett might have something to do with the scholarship from J.E.E, Joint Effort for Education. Seth's moving had lead to Jake moving in with part of his pack, probably the result that my husband and his brothers were anticipating. I couldn't deny that I thought it was a good idea not just for Nessie's sake but for Jake's as well. It was healthy for Jake to have somewhere of his own and it did wonders for his mood when he could spend time with some of his own people.

His unnaturally loud crashing footsteps were stumbling up the staircase, I saw his massive body appear in the hallway. Jake's dark skin beamed almost glowing in contrast to the white walls and pale wooden floors. I beamed at him, as it was impossible not to, with his sparkling white teeth showing themselves completely from underneath his dark lips.

"Morning mom, dad." He winked as he mocked us.

"If I was your father I wouldn't be so forgiving about that dismal grade you received on your philosophy paper Jacob." Edward said sternly from besides me. I didn't even know that Jacob was taking philosophy, and less that he had turned in a paper recently. It was funny how much Edward was always keeping up with Nessie and Jake's studies and now Seth's as well. I had enough trouble keeping focused on my own education, Edward often teased that it would become easier as the decades passed.

"You aren't going to be forgiving either way." Jacob rolled his eyes, before mocking repentance. "I will try better to do better next time, dad."

"You might at least try to be a better example Jake. She has a hard enough time concentrating on her work without you encouraging her to fail." I scolded a bit. He actually looked sorry now, as his massive hand pushed back his long hair.

"Well she doesn't have to know, neither do you for that matter. Except that Edward can't seem to stay out of my head." Jake frowned at Edward. Edward chuckled and shook his head beside me.

"No deal." He laughed. Something I was surely missing.

"Fine, well?" Jake demanded.

"I am sure we can talk about this later, Nessie wanted you to wake her when you arrived." Edward sighed, tired of the discussion already. Jake grinned again and pushed past us, a burst of heating radiating from him as he went sprinting up the stairs.

"Young impatience." Edward sighed.

"I'm impatient." I playful tugged at the buttons on Edward's shirt.

"Yes love you usually are." Edward laughed. "But it was the lark, and we must go about our day." He reminded me.

"What does the day have for us?" I questioned, annoyed at his sense of responsibility that flared at the most inopportune moments.

"A paper to finish on both of our counts, a fight with Nessie and Jacob I'm sure on their spring break plans, and packing for our trip we leave for tonight Bella" Edward frowned at the ceiling momentarily. I smiled thinking how Edward had surprised me with a trip to Esme's island for our spring break. It was the first time we were getting away even for a few days since our honeymoon. There hadn't been time, we both feared leaving Renesmee for any kind of time period as we might miss something. But Renesmee was turning six this year, she was in her junior year of high school and there was little development left for her as she now looked like a 19 year old. Edward had figured there was little we could miss, and I had a feeling that Esme and Carlisle might have convinced him some time to ourselves would be good for us. Edward's amused voice distracted me from my thoughts.

"And I believe that Alice is currently throwing away your favorite pair of jeans."

At that I jumped away from him, almost running into our room. I could hear his laughing behind me, but he didn't follow. I came bursting into my closet, a rather large cathedral of clothing most of the pieces gone unused. I flew past the cashmere and silk, the racks of dresses that I had never touched and piles of shoes I thought were unnecessary.

"ALICE!" I screeched louder than I had intended. She ignored me, as I am sure she heard me coming. I glared at her back, debating for a quick second tearing out her black hair.

"That wouldn't be nice." Alice sighed, as she finally surrendered and turned around. She held in her petite hand, the pair of jeans that had traveled with me from my human existence in Forks to my immortal existence here.

"Bella," Alice said annoyed, "Just because you are immortal does not mean that these jeans are."

She held my jeans like a dirty rag infested with disease, and I narrowed my eyes at her. She smiled at me though, knowing my actions before I think I even did.

"They have a huge hole in them Bella, you have to let me throw them out. Are you going to let all these beautiful outfits go to waste because you are too stubborn to take advantage of them? I am throwing these out." Alice said it as a statement and I knew I lost the fight before it began. So what was the point in having it?

I sighed dramatically and Alice squealed, tossing the jeans into a bag she had been hiding behind her back.

"Are you throwing away more?" I demanded.

"No, donating some items." Alice shrugged. "Not all yours." She added to calm my growing anger. Edward walked into the closet, going to his corner to pick out a new outfit for the day. He instantly distracted me as I watched him pull off his shirt, exposing his perfect chest.

"Bella." Alice was aggravated at my lack of attention on her. Edward smiled, probably hearing her annoyance at me paying attention to his every move instead of her raid on my wardrobe.

"Yes Alice?" I forced my eyes to rest on her face again. I could tell suddenly that I was going to have to somehow prove my love to my favorite sister again. Alice was beaming at me, in that pixie type manner that could only mean she was going to ask something of me that I didn't want to do.

"Bella," She started and I groaned. Edward laughed softly from behind me, I could hear the soft rustling of khaki as he changed his pants and I frowned at Alice for making me focus on her and not him.

"Don't look at me like that, you see him all the time." Alice rolled her eyes sensing the root of my frown well enough. According to her, Emmett and Jasper my newborn years were actually not plagued with need for human blood but intolerable need for Edward.

"Alice what do you want?" I demanded, calming as Edward wrapped his arms around me from behind.

"You make her worse Edward." Alice sighed. No one seemed to bother Edward that he might need me as much as I needed him, it seemed though that they had done their fair share of that before I had turned.

"She is growing impatient, and I think Nessie and Jake might be coming to find us soon. So if you don't ask her…" Edward was nestling his nose into my hair.

"Bella," Alice started again and I rolled my eyes at her. "May I pack for you? Don't you want to surprise Edward?"

My laughter rang like a song around me, as I pointed to my mind.

"Can't read my thoughts. You on the other hand, he knows everything you think how would what you pick be a surprise?" I demanded. She shrugged.

"It would be a surprise if you wear it. Emmett is betting a high sum that you two won't need any clothing at all, well he has a bit more to say on the subject but I doubt that he would share that with you." Alice smiled devilishly. I rolled my eyes at her and waved my hand towards my clothing.

"Fine pack for me, at the rate I'm going today I am never going to get my paper written and it's due before our flight leaves." I gritted my teeth already regretting the decision as Alice pranced around Edward and myself.

"Please don't throw anything away while I'm gone." I sighed.

"Silly Bella." Edward mumbled into my ear. I stood there taking in the moment, as Alice was sliding her fingers over my dress rack and Edward pulled me with him to grab our suitcase. It seemed like we packed for an unknown period of time, like I said before I had lost my ability to really tell time. Alice and I argued about outfits and Edward snickered and mediated between the two of us, as he threw his outfits carelessly in the mist of mine. We walked out of the closet, the three of us, and one suitcase as the symbol of our accomplishment for the morning. Jasper had come wandering into the room at this point.

"There you are!" He exclaimed at Alice, she giggled and jumped at him. Jasper caught her with ease and frowned.

"You disappeared for the morning and then you jump into my arms like I am the one who has been gone." He shook his head.

"You were gone all night." She corrected. I laughed.

"Hunting bears and fighting with my husband." I added.

"No I didn't fight with Edward, We fought with Emmett. Big brute thinks he can always win." Jasper laughed.

"Jasper, Renesmee and Jake?" Edward asked, his eyes scanning the ceiling again.

"Anticipation and Excitement. A little bit of fear, but not much." Jasper shook his head. "As Emmett says, you aren't that scary anymore."

"Always fighting." Alice grumbled, probably seeing the fore coming fight that loomed in our future.

"Not always." I fought.

"Close enough." Jasper shook his head and quickly ducked out of the room still cradling Alice in his arms. I sighed, Jasper didn't like hanging around much when we were fighting. He was growing tired of our tedious tension as he called it when it came to dealing with Nessie. She had becoming increasing hardheaded in the last year, rebelling against anything Edward and I suggested. Renesmee had become accustomed to getting what she wanted when she wanted it, something I think we might have fostered in her. From the moment she was born the entire Cullen Clan, Edward and myself included, worshiped her. The problem now laid in the fact that Nessie was a bit spoilt, and Edward and I were trying hard to reverse the effects that spoiling was having on her otherwise sweet disposition.

"Am I going to be annoyed?" I asked Edward. He raised an eyebrow looking me over.

"You always surprise me." He shrugged.

"Are you going to tell me?" I bite at my lip being annoyed he was being evasive.

"No need." He gestured towards the door where Nessie came tumbling in with Jacob in tow. She tripped over a stack of books that Edward had been researching with the day before and we hadn't moved. Jacob caught her, and she didn't even seem to skip a beat in her movement and thoughts.

"Mommy, Daddy!" Nessie screeched before realizing we were standing rather near to her. Edward rolled his eyes.

"Look before you leap little one." He sighed more to me than to her.

"They are right there." Jake laughed at her, as he whirled her around and back onto her feet without much effort. I watched Jake's hands on her waist, and her body reacting to his in every position it was in from the fall, to the lift, to the standing. I caught myself wandering if this is what Rene had meant about Edward and I constantly reacting to each other. It was after all the reason Rene had not been shocked that we were going to be married, not that I was ever going to be surprised when Nessie and Jake announced their engagement. But it was a thought that over took my mind for a moment, I had always known that I reacted to Edward when I was human, moving away, holding my breathe trying not to tempt him or be overtaken by him. But Nessie and Jake didn't have the same problems, yet they still react to each other in much the same way, getting closer, keeping contact, moving and shifting as the other did. It made me think that our reactions, Edward and mine might have been more about love than about Edward's desire to drink my blood and my desire to stay alive.

"Bells, are you even paying attention?" Jacob asked me and I snapped back. Edward chuckled behind me and mumbled something about well done and never getting to a paper.

"Mommy." Nessie stamped her foot, and my attention re-focused, though part of my mind still mused with the physical reactions of my child and of my self with our significant others.

"Yes Renesmee?" I still liked her full name, even though she made a face at its use, I blamed Jacob. I had conceded and begun using her nickname a few years back, everyone else did it was hard not to, even if she had been nicknamed after fictional monster.

"So my spring break is next week, and so is Jake's." Nessie was going quickly, almost tripping over her words.

"Yes we know this." I nodded.

"And you and Daddy are going to Esme's island this week." She rambled and I looked at Edward's face but he seemed to be busy glaring at Jacob. I followed the glare and noticed that Jacob was concentrating hard on the ground I wandered what was happening between them as Nessie still rambled.

"And well I am older now, almost completely grown." Nessie was saying and I sighed dramatically.

"Get to the point Renesmee." I stated simply, she glared at me for interrupting her rambling but smiled sweetly when she noticed I was staring at her face.

"Jacob and I want to go to down the Amazon to visit Zafrina." She said trying her hardest to sound like her Father, by using that persuasive voice that never came out like his at all but you could always tell she was trying.

"No." Edward said softly shaking his head. I snapped my head to look at him, not sure if his response was to her or if he was still having a silent fight with Jacob. Edward's eyes were fixed on Nessie and his face was calm but resolved. I looked towards Nessie, who paused for only a second seeing I had not responded. Her brown eyes flickered at Edward pleading but refocused on me finding his response unchangeable.

"You did promise Zafrina I would visit." She started.

"We said we would visit." Edward commented and she again ignored him.

"It would be a great adventure, a nice human experience to have a spring break." Nessie inserted the human experience part for Edward more than for myself. The child did know how to get to us, another result of her spoiling attentions knowing how to create reactions in each of her guardians.

"Humans don't experience unsupervised spring breaks until they are in college." Edward sighed.

"When they are usually about 18 years old." I added, trying not to smile as her annoyance started to rise in her face. Her brow creased, her tiny mouth puckered much like when she had been a baby, and her nose scrunched as she stamped her foot at me.

"When will you both stop treating me like a child! Just because I'm only six years old, hasn't Carlisle said I'm mentally developed as well!" She screeched a bit.

"Adults don't stamp their feet." Edward eyes were narrowed at her foot disapprovingly.

"Rose does." Jacob finally spoke. I looked at him amazed, quiet the entire time and this was the contribution he had to the fight, useless as an alley to both Nessie and myself. I raised my eyebrows at him and he shrugged smiling at me.

"I would hope that Nessie would learn to be a bit better tempered than Rosalie." Edward's voice was starting to tense, his anger was going to come soon.

"You are still too young to go to the Amazon by yourself little one, and for a week? That's not enough time and you can't miss school." I took steps towards her to try to calm her with some petting but Edward held me back.

"Stop encouraging her," He murmured to me. I glared at him momentarily, so that Nessie wouldn't see, and composed my look as I focused on her again.

"But I want to go." She pouted. When temper tantrums didn't work, move to begging, yes a spoilt child indeed.

"We will all go next summer, after your graduation." Edward stated.

"But I wanted to go next week. Please Daddy?" She turned her eyes on him and he laughed but shook his head.

"No princess. Don't be difficult, please." Though his voice was laughing, his tone was unmistakable it was determined and stern. His tone implied his word was law.

"How about we compromise?" Jake asked suddenly. Edward laughed again, the rhythm of his chuckles made me smile.

"Might we be allowed to go to Forks next week, we would only see Charlie and hang out on the Res?" Jacob smiled brightly, as if he had been planning this proposal all along. Jacob of course knew us almost better than Nessie did, and he knew how we loved compromises.

"Charlie has been asking about Nessie, and Jake hasn't been home in two years." I mumbled to Edward, who was pensive next to me. Jake was sneaky, he knew we couldn't manage to return to forks for a week it would be risky. If Nessie and Jacob went to Forks they would have to go alone.

"We would be safe Daddy, with adult supervision and everything. I mean with Grandpa and Billy around. Not to mention Sam, he's more high strung than even you are." Nessie was rambling again and I raised my eyebrows at her comment about Edward being high strung.

"Only the reservation?" Edward demanded. Jacob nodded.

"Yes, only the reservation."

"I don't see why not." I nodded finally and I could sense Edward agreed with me.

"And maybe next summer you might let us go to the Amazon alone?" Nessie pranced out of the room. Jake winked at us and sauntered out after her.

"I don't like it." Edward finally stated.

"Like what?" I demanded.

"The idea of them going anywhere alone." Edward huffed.

"She is going to be done growing next year." I commented back.

"Nevertheless." Edward gritted his teeth a bit and then smiled at me.

"What was going on with you and Jacob?" I demanded suddenly remember their silent fight.

"He was trying to distract me." Edward shrugged. "I am going to speak to Rosalie and Emmett about watching them this week. Jacob was listing a few of their activities, that I would not approve of that might happen while we're gone. Or that have happened."

He wasn't even finished with his sentence before he was out the door, not that I didn't still hear the end. I laughed Jacob would think it might be easier to convince me of going to the Amazon than Edward. So of course he was trying to be helpful, focusing on thoughts that Edward would be infuriated by while Nessie spoke to me. I looked around the bedroom, eyes roving over the titles of each of Edward's CDs, still organized in his strange compulsive manner that I barely understood. As I neared the edge of the shelves of music, I found a new distraction in my shelves of books. Who knows how long I stood there, without moving much besides my eyes.

My thoughts were bouncing: reading titles around me, thinking of a thesis for my Emily Dickens paper, remembering how Edward looked this morning, debating Nessie and Jacob's trip to the Amazon, mourning the lost of my favorite jeans, cursing Alice for her impending raid on my clothing and wishing Rosalie luck with dealing with Nessie. The last thought caught more of my attention for a moment, Rosalie had up until today never had to truly parent Nessie. Rose had gotten to be the obnoxiously overprotective aunty to Nessie, petting and granting her every wish. It took the first three years to convince Rose that Nessie didn't need everything to be handed to her, but that the little girl was able to get things for herself. If it had been up to Rose, we would all have been Nessie's personal servants. I grimaced at the thought of Rosalie having to deny Nessie anything and I hoped that Edward was convincing her it was imperative for Rose to be firm with our cunning daughter.

A familiar white arm was resting on my waist and a nose was brushing up against my ear.

"So distracted." Edward's voice was sleek. I laughed and twisted to face him, throwing my arms around his neck.

"Not that you help." I replied. He looked at me his eyes playful as he nodded, leaned forward and then pulled away suddenly.

"I can be helpful." Edward had fallen out of my embrace, and stood at the other side of the room.

"Edward." I frowned. "Not fair."

"Maybe if you're paper was done. We would have more time for this." He shrugged at me, still from across the room. I glared at him, his body leaning carelessly against the tower of CDs from the 1950s.

"Is your paper done?" I demanded. Not moving, not willing to let him win by me going to him. He smiled, his lips curling over his perfect teeth as he nodded slowly almost human. My eyes must have shown surprised because he chuckled at me, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a folded stack of papers.

"15 pages on themes and motifs constantly used by Robert Frost." He was smug.

"Stupid perfectionist." I mumbled before I pranced to the computer, not giving him the satisfaction of going to him. He laughed musically behind me and I started typing faster than an average college student could. I was somewhere in the middle of my third page about the symbolic significance of nature in Emily's poetry when I could feel Edward was hovering over me.

"That doesn't make sense." He commented.

"It does." I growled back. His hand was on my shoulder, as I typed madly into the fourth page.

"That is a good point." He whispered, still reading over my shoulder.

"Could you find something to do?" I begged, as I ached to wrap myself around him and fought with myself not to turn around. He could sense my tension and moved away from me back to his music, I could feel his movements behind me as I kept typing. I could hear his fingers travel over the cases of his CDs, I trudged forward in my paper almost half way done. Suddenly the musical notes of Clair De Lune were behind me and I started typing to the rhythm. I was aware that Edward had stopped moving around the room, and though again I yearned to turn to see what he was doing, I kept with my writing. As the song ended, I came to the end concluding with some point of beauty in nature and the revolving cycle that symbolized death and carpe diem mentality. I smiled satisfied as I clicked on the print button, and spun around to find Edward grinning at me from his black couch with his arms wide open.

"Death and Carpe Diem, huh?" Edward laughed at me, as I gracefully came gliding into his arms.

"It works." I responded, melding into his body almost perfectly.

"Enough to get you a mediocre grade. I thought of you better than that." He laughed, but I knew he meant his words.

"Give me Austen, or Shakespeare even. But poetry Edward, it's so tedious." I groaned a bit.

"Yes because Victorian Romantics are never tedious." Edward rolled his eyes.

"Only when they are being over descriptive." I laughed. "Next time we will major in whatever you want." I offered.

"I don't mind this major, it's somewhat fascinating a nice change from the usual." He shrugged. There was a loud banging on the door.

"Don't break down the door Emmett!" Edward groaned as he pushed himself out of my embrace only slightly. Emmett came into our room, his mouth twitching into a smile.

"Of course I'm not interrupting anything." He snickered and I growled at him. At my growl Emmett's face became somber, he was composed before he spoke again.

"We're getting ready to head out for class, you want me to turn in your papers?" Emmett chuckled again. Edward moved us, carefully standing me and then moving to grab my paper from the printer tray. Emmett moved to me, ruffling my hair up a bit.

"Excited about your trip?" His voice dripped with amusement, though I didn't care to find out why. I nodded curtly, why did Emmett take so much pleasure in torturing me?

"Bella ignore him." Edward sighed, as he handed both our papers into Emmett's massive bear claw. Emmett took the papers, shoved them into his jacket and then threw his arms around both Edward and myself.

"Kids, you will be good? Not get into too much trouble?" He asked, looking down at us his face grinning from his mouth to his eyes.

"Come on Emmett." Edward tried shrugging him off, with not much success. Emmett held on tighter, shifting us around in his arms as he spoke.

"We'll miss you though, so you won't stay away long?" Emmett seemed sincere in his teasing this time and I looked up at him.

"Of course we will come back Emmett. You will take care of our baby?" I asked earnestly. He noticed my voice was tense, Edward also noticed it as his arm reached around Emmett's body to hold my own hand.

"Of course Bella, don't worry about a thing. The kid is basically like my own daughter. And I would crush the skull of anything that harmed her." Emmett laughed carelessly. I could feel Edward rolling his eyes.

"Don't hurt Jacob. She would be very upset." Edward groaned.

"Emmett! You can't, you mustn't. Even if they do something that upsets you, control your temper." I stammered a bit, and he laughed again.

"I control my temper better than Edward, it's Rose you should worry about." Edward pulled us closer, and then let go. I laughed, he was right but neither one of them would hurt Jacob and they would take great care of Renesme.

"Remember be good." Emmett winked at us before disappearing from our room. I looked at Edward, who shrugged.

"He is worried we might get caught up with each other, get distracted from coming back."

Edward wrapped his arm around me, kissing me on the top of my head lightly.

"Carlisle is waiting for us." He held me tightly.

"Yes, yes. Off to paradise." I laughed. Edward held me with one hand, and held our suitcase with the other hand. If my heart still beat it would be erratic at this junction as my body tensed with anticipation for the coming week. Even the murky memory of my last time at Esme's Island with Edward was intoxicating. I could shake from the excitement at the prospect of being in that place, with the white sands and the vibrations of our love as it had reached new heights. As I took my steps, feet moving perfectly with Edward, I knew I was moving from one of my perfect dreams into another one of my perfect dreams. I had chosen this path, this walk, this company and I was thankful for it constantly.

"Not even sharing one thought?" Edward whispered to me, and I smiled.

"I have chosen my devotion. Gone my own way." I sighed. He laughed besides me.

"Reading Mansfield Park again?" He questioned, raising his eyebrows as we reached Carlisle.

"There are other authors Bella," Carlisle rolled his eyes. Jake and Nessie were sitting on the hood of the car.

"You might scratch up the paint when you do that." Edward frowned, but both of them ignored him. Jake stepped down and picked Nessie up, spun her around once and then let her down. She skipped over to Edward and kissed him on the cheek.

"Enjoy your week Daddy." She sang to him, Edward embraced her tightly. He mumbled quickly into her ear, before pulling away and petting her hair lovingly.

"Yes sir." She laughed, and I could feel the defiance she was coating in her words but just shrugged it off. She came prancing to me, as behind her Jacob and Edward started manly shaking hands and ending hugging each other tightly.

Renesmee wrapped her arms around my shoulders and nestled into my neck. I stroked her hair, letting her transfer thoughts to me. Still her preferred method of speaking, she showed me how she was going to miss me but also how much she wanted me to have a good time. She looked up and smiled at me, I winked and smiled back before kissing her lightly on the forehead.

"Be good for Rose and Emmett?" I questioned. She nodded, but even in the nonverbal there seemed to be defiance. I wondered if she knew she was being defiant, I didn't know. She could just be choosing her own path and even I had been defiant when I had done that too. Edward would not like my theory. Jacob's heat was almost burning into my side before I turned to face him and I spun to stare at his chest. He crushed me with heat into him for a few seconds.

"Have a great trip Bells. Try not to conceive anymore kids." He laughed.

"Actually Jacob, Bella can't have anymore children." Carlisle started, but Edward lightly touched his shoulder.

"He knows that." I heard Edward mumbled. "He's trying to be funny."

Jacob laughed, winking down at me.

"I am funny." He moved away from me and back towards Renesme, who was starring at herself in the hood of Edward's newest Silver Volvo. I shook my head, maybe Rose was having too much of an influence on my only child. I didn't have much time to ponder as Edward pulled me into the car with him. I closed my eyes, almost naturally as I curled into Edward's side.


	2. It took me ten years

**2. ****It took me ten years...**

Renesmee

_Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy._– Aristotle

Hiding is like a natural talent for a vampire, we were built for it as my father might say. He might also ramble on about how we are killers, well not really around me, but I had heard his arguments with my mother over the nature of vampires as killers. I had read enough about vampires, not to mention having lived with a pack of them, and being half of one myself to know that vampires were meant for hiding. Dark allies, shadowed corners with our movements no one could hear and our senses that left humans defenseless to our presence. Not that I would really know off-hand. I had never killed a human. My family was against the killing of humans for their blood, and though I had thought about it and possibly wanted to sometimes I wasn't allowed. Carlisle had anticipated that I might need human blood for my development and kept a stock of it in the house, just for the moments when I might become bloodthirsty. It was something that him and Jasper had discussed on occasion, a lengthy conversation that usually bored me but consisted of talk about my development being some combination of human growth and newborn vampire years. Really it just meant that I might crave more human blood than I should, that I might become unstable emotionally according to Jasper. While Carlisle also argued I would need the blood, and maybe human vitamins to keep me growing, as well as possibly experiencing some stages of human development though never of them was quite sure how the mixture would really work.

Really all this meant to me is that I might but had yet to truly crave human blood, to make a kill as Jasper put it. I think it might come one day, I had fancied the idea sometimes, wanting to be more vampire than human but my family usually talked me out of it within minutes with their talks of morals and souls. Not that I don't believe in morals and souls, I do, I guess but sometimes I wonder if they aren't all wrong and maybe we are meant to do just what we were built for, kill. I twisted in my chair ever so slightly, hoping the movement wouldn't alert anyone of my whereabouts. I had been hiding, yes, that is what sparked my thoughts on my vampire nature. I knew vampires could hide from anything except other vampires. I was desperate for some alone time away from my overbearing family. I had in a moment slipped away from them, flying into my grandfather's office hoping that no one would think to look for me there. It was a well thought out plan because Carlisle wouldn't be home from the hospital until well into the night and the rest of the family didn't often wander into his office. Thinking about the situation I had only ever seen my father and mother wander into Carlisle's office when he wasn't home. For a second I had a tinge of possible regret thinking that maybe it was a respect thing and that maybe I shouldn't be in his office without his permission. But I quickly shook the thought from my head, I was given everything I asked for so why did I need to ask for anything anymore?

I smirked a bit at myself. Perfect plan. That is until I felt my phone ring and then heard it, so much for hiding from the vampires. I knew everyone had heard it but when no one came parading in I was perplexed. Maybe someone had finally figured out that I wanted to be alone, thank God for Uncle Emmett sometimes. He was the only one that would have thought my running off might mean I didn't want attention, not that I was seeking more as I am sure that is what Rose thought. I shifted my weight around a bit more now that I didn't have to worry about being heard because my hiding was known but not disturbed. Looking down at my phone I giggled a bit, it had been Emmett who called me probably trying to figure out if I was still in the house or had crawled out some window. Yes, I am still in the house they could stop worrying about my running off for tonight at least.

My grandfather's office was warm and welcoming with its light browns, reds and cream colors. This particular office didn't look like the one in Forks this office was more Frank Wright with open space, high ceilings, fancy log cabin in the redwoods. I wasn't sure yet which office I liked better, I remembered the other office like it had been and as the place that I had almost watched my mother die. I shuddered, as it was a memory I didn't like it was a bit haunting to know that I had killed my mother. My father and Jacob had fought with me several times when I had let the feeling overcome me that it wasn't my doing at all. My father was fierce in his convictions that he shouldn't have allowed it to happen, but it was my mother that always calmed me down. She would wrap her arms around me and tell me that she had made the decision and that I had brought her two things. The first something that she had wanted since she had met my father, for him to make her like him a vampire. The second being myself, a baby, a combination of her and my father that neither of them ever thought they could have but did. It was amazing how calm my mother was about her death, she pretended she didn't remember the pain of it all for my father's sake but everyone knew she was lying. Well almost everyone, I think that my father and Carlisle might still believe she really didn't remember the pain but I couldn't be sure.

I hated to admit it but I might miss my parents. I had been away from my mother for three days, when I had been born and that was it. I had never been away from my father. So today it had been bothering me all day and it was starting to grate my nerves that I missed them. This was really messing with all my thoughts of being independent. Maybe I wasn't as old as I thought I was, well that is an understatement. My life was a jumbled mess of ages, because I knew I was actually only seven years old. Sometimes when I went out with Jacob I would beg to go to a park where I would watch the "regular" seven year olds. Those little girls wore multi-layered skirts and princess t-shirts with ribbons in their hair. They read books with more pictures than words and thought of nothing outside of sand castles and princesses. Well at least that is what it looked like. But me, as a seven year, wore designer jeans and fancy tank tops with jewels that were from the mid 1920s. I read Anne Rice books about Vampires, CS Lewis books about religion, Shakespeare novels about love and other such classics without any pictures in them at all. And my world was filled with thoughts of immortality, death, purpose of life, longevity of love, and so much out of the realm of a seven year old. But here I was, sitting in my grandfather's office curled up missing my parents.

I must have fallen asleep, exhausting myself with my overloading emotions. Not sure how long it was that I was curled up on the couch, but however long my neck didn't appreciate it. The lights flickered around me and my eyes flapped open unwillingly. I hated being woken up. I blinked and stretched out my body from my fetal position.

"You've had Rosalie in an uproar for a few hours now." My grandfather laughed a bit at me. My eyes took a second to re-focus as I looked towards the desk where he was sitting. Carlisle sat relaxed at his desk looking over his papers as calm as ever without even looking up at me.

"Why?" I groaned. He smiled lightly but still didn't look up.

"She does not like to be ignored, you know how Rosalie is." I sighed and pulled my legs up to my chest comfortably.

"I believe that Jacob has called you a few times." Carlisle stated quietly. I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out my little silver phone. Looking at the screen I noticed that Jacob had called more than a few times, he might at this point be near panic.

"He is sitting downstairs playing something on that new Wii with Jasper and Emmett." Carlisle added, probably noticing the panic now on my face. I glared at him at that moment.

"Why?" I snarled a little bit. Carlisle looked up at me this time surprised by my anger.

"When you didn't answer he called Emmett, worried. Emmett told him that you were asleep in my office and they didn't want to bother you. So he came over to wait for you to wake." Carlisle was intently starring at me, studying my face with his kind old eyes. I was glowering at him now upset over his calm, over his all-knowing look, over the smirk that I sensed at the corner of his lips. I crossed my arms at him and settled myself into the chair.

"So much like Edward." I heard Carlisle grumble a bit before sighing and turning back to his work. "What is bothering you Renesmee?"

I snarled again, though he ignored it. My grandfather sat there smug in his wisdom. Why would he say I was like my father, if I was like my father I would be able to hear his thoughts now. But I had my talent, though I loved, wasn't as handy as my father's mind reading abilities. And then there was the fact that my grandfather refused to pet me as much as the others, he referred to me by my name and demanded that I act for myself. He called me Renesmee when he was questioning my spoilt nature, as my parents put it, and challenging me to stop acting like a baby. At least that's what it felt like he was doing.

"Nothing." I growled a bit my anger was almost electrifying.

"Nessie, you seem cranky and tired. Are you feeling all right?" He asked suddenly taking a different tone with me. He had stood up in a fluid motion and was at my side. The back of his hand on my forehead within seconds while his other hand was settled on my wrist.

"I feel fine Carlisle." I snapped trying to shake him from me. He could not be shaken though, I might be strong for half human but I was weak for half vampire.

"You seem agitated." He frowned, trying to decide if my heartbeat was normal. I touched his hand transferring thoughts, rapidly to make him understand and hating to speak anymore. All my thoughts from the afternoon went fluidly into his mind, my fears of being without my parents, the feelings of missing them. Then there were my questions about what age I was suppose to act and what I was suppose to be like, and then came why I wanted to be so independent and why my parents didn't want me to be. All these visions transferred as memories, as thoughts, as visions that had yet to happen but I had imagined in my mind. He smiled knowingly.

"Yes that is normal." Carlisle suggested.

"Normal for what I am, normal for children, or normal for young vampires?" I almost screamed at him and his calmness.

"No need to scream." He suggested, his eyebrows shooting up. Carlisle was against raising one's voice, and didn't approve of uncontrolled temper but I didn't seem to care at the moment. I grabbed his hand that was slipping away from my wrist and transfer another vision, this one of annoyance over his patience that was never ending.

"Yes normal indeed." Carlisle said quietly this time. I screeched a second and jumped to my feet.

"We all miss them, you have never been apart from them. We have been separate from each other before. So it's something we have experienced and we know how to deal with it, no matter how old you look or how old you want to be, you must understand that you have yet to have such experiences. You are still young, so much you don't know about and haven't seen. Renesmee you are still a child in that aspect and we just want to protect you, let you experience your life in a safe environment with people who will take care of you." Carlisle smiled down at me kindly. His smile seemed mocking to me though and I felt my cheeks burn in a way that was unfamiliar to my vampire body.

"Maybe I don't want your help?" I shouted as I stormed out of the room. I heard him softly laughing behind me and mumble the word teenagers. I slammed the door behind me, feeling his calmness break for a second because he hated slamming doors but he made no attempt to follow me. Just let me be, and I stomped my feet along the floorboards of the hallway. As I was tumbling up the stairs to my tower room, warm hands crept along my waist and I was engulfed in warmth. The smell of dog, motor oil, sweat, and dirt with a light aroma of peppermint and soap was around me and before I could even truly react. Jake was whispering in my ear. His face was nestled into my hair, his arms tighten around my waist and his warm breath danced on my cheek. I couldn't think of my anger, I couldn't remember where I was and I forgot that I had been tormented by my thoughts all day.

"You've been hiding from me all afternoon." Jacob whispered but as he sensed my body tense at the words he changed course. He kissed my neck lightly before speaking again to distract me I'm sure.

"What has been bothering my sea monster?" He laughed at me. My nose scrunched at his nickname for me, it was not one that I was fond of. Jake didn't really wait for my response as in seconds he moved one of his arms to behind my knees and cause me to fall ever so gracefully into his arms. I laughed and he carried me up the rest of the stairs telling me about his day, again not waiting for the answer to his question.

"I had my philosophy class this morning. The topic reminded me of Edward and you. Sometimes I wonder if you know how much you really are like him. Don't get me wrong you're like Bella too, those eyes for example are just as angry with me now as hers ever were." Jacob laughed as he set me down on the bed. I scurried a bit to sit before he attempted to throw himself on top of me.

"So are you going to tell me what's eating you?" Jake caught hold of my foot and held it steady in his grip.

"Nothing can eat me." I spat at him, crossing my arms. He laughed heartily before grabbing my other foot and pulling me down. He pushed me down onto the bed, holding me, making me look him in the eye and I couldn't help but smile. Stupid Jacob always smiling it made it almost impossible to be mad at him for anything. As I smiled, he winked at me and waited. Holding me down as a prisoner in my own room. I didn't mind much though I had missed him all day. I took in each breath of his scent around me and focused on the heat of his hands as they held my wrists. It was something of a wonder to me how I had grown up these years, learning Jacob, knowing Jacob, and loving Jacob. In turn he had learned everything about me, Jacob reacted to me almost better than my very parents and I didn't understand if it was something to do with the mythical imprinting of his tribe or because he loved me. I stared at him now and found myself haunted with the thoughts that had occasionally crossed my mind. Did Jacob love me because he had to, or did he love me because he wanted to, I was never sure exactly how imprinting worked. I had tried to study, I had attempted to ask, but an answer had yet to come.

"You're family heard your tantrum with Carlisle. You shouldn't yell at him like that." Jacob finally sighed.

"Are you going to lecture me about yelling at people?" I challenged. He let go of my wrists and shifted his body to be next to mine, but he held one of my hands.

"Why is it bothering you so much?" Jacob whispered. I shrugged and pulled his arm to become my pillow comfortably. I stared at the patterns his skin made at the inside of his elbow, noticing the same scars probably from fights he had with one of his many wolf brothers years before I was born. Everyone I knew had scars from the fights of yesterday. So many things I hadn't experienced, the words of Carlisle echoed in my head. My phone vibrated in my pocket again.

"That's them." Jacob nudged me his voice was sluggish. Jacob's ability to fall asleep anywhere at any moment was cause for envy. I flipped open the phone and slid it to me ear.

"Princess is something wrong?" Came my father's voice, a silky combination of concern and persuasion. I choked a little bit, and I knew he had heard my hesitation when I answered the phone and now the emotion in my lack of words.

"Nessie?" His voice became sterner than it had been moments ago. My father didn't often practice patience.

"Nothing is wrong." I sighed. I heard his soft rumbling laughter on the other side of the phone.

"Renesmee." His voice told me every word he was thinking.

"How is the island?" I asked trying to swayed his thoughts.

"How are you?" He replied back. I giggled at his focus, my mother was easier to distract.

"Do you think I need to have more experiences?" I whispered, though I knew he could hear every word. There was silence between us for a few moments while Jake stirred in his sleep next to me.

"What type of experiences?" His voice was careful and planned.

"Carlisle and I were fighting…" I started.

"Renesmee you were fighting with Carlisle?" His voice was angry now, damn my choice of words.

"Talking maybe. It was nothing. Just something he said, can I talk to Mom?" I asked desperately.

"Yes, we will speak about this later. I will be calling Carlisle, you know." He warned before instantly my mother's voice was on the other end.

"Princess why are you fighting with Carlisle?" She asked. I groaned, why couldn't they just drop things I didn't want to talk about.

"I think I was just in a mood." I replied back. "He woke me from a nap."

"Well you should get some sleep tonight. We miss you very much. Get some rest and be good." I smiled and nodded.

"Can daddy sing to me?" I whispered. I heard his laughter in the background again. The humming was soft, familiar and lulling me into a peaceful sleep. Not sure how my phone got put away, Jake probably woke up and put it away for me. He must have woken up several times during the night because when I woke up, I was under the covers and he was spiraled across the bottom end of the bed.

"Breakfast?" Jacob mumbled to me, I saw his eyes fluttering resisting the urge to be awake. I rolled over and looked at the blinking alarm clock on the night table and knew there would be no time for breakfast.

"Late!" I screeched as I sped past Jacob's limp body and changed quickly into the nearest outfit. As I was pulling a pale purple cable sweater over my head and slipping into a pair of gray converse, I threw a shirt at Jacob.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" He groaned as he sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Time. Late for class. Both of us." I spat the words out and threw my hair up into a half bun and put on long pocket watch that had my family's crest on it.

"Even half disheveled you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." Jacob's eyes were wide now, sparkling almost. I smiled laughing at him a moment before winking and walking out of the room. I lost my footing on the stairs and found myself looking up at my Aunt Alice.

"Carefully." She smiled. "Sometimes the Bella in you just comes out." Her graceful swan like arms pushed me back onto my feet. She smiled, her glittering teeth almost blinding me in the shimmer of the morning sun. Jacob came jogging down the stairs after me, dressed perfectly to match my attire. I wonder if he did that on purpose.

"Rose and I thought you might want to go hunting with us tonight?" Alice asked. I nodded grateful at the opportunity to hunt the very thought giving me a painful stab of dryness in the back of my throat.

"We better get going though." Jake nudged me, running to the door. I touched Alice, asking her how my day was going to go, without using my words. She smiled at me and shrugged.

"Still a little unclear. Maybe stay away from stairs." She laughed and skipped away from me probably to find Jasper. I ran out the door and jumped onto the back of Jacob's already moving motorcycle. I noticed this was one of the first mornings someone didn't wake me up, without my parents the rest of the family seemed less noticing of the time. Did they expect me to get up by myself for school, would they have let me skip the day had I wanted? I might try to see how the idea would float tomorrow, or maybe I just wouldn't get up. I transfer thoughts of what to do with our afternoon to Jacob as he drove speeding most of the way. Of course our Victorian family house was far away from the rest of town. Granted with the way that most of the people I knew drove it mattered little as it only took us ten minutes to get anywhere no matter the distance.

Most of the day at school passed like a blur much like everyday of high school. I paid attention to about one tenth of my high school experience and truthfully it was slightly mundane and petty. The hallways and classroom were filled with popularity contests, lust-love relationships, demonstrations of strength and power though I suppose those are typical in the real world too outside the walls of Hanover High. I usually picked one class a day to really pay attention to, sometimes the same class for the week and other times a different class a day. Often times it would be my history class, the teacher was animated and the subject was just so much more interesting than English or Math. But lately I had been only paying attention in my Spanish class, trying to really learn another language because I was determined to go to South America. If I could spend this week alone without my parents, a few weeks maybe months wouldn't be hard. Right?

Today though sitting in my Spanish class, nothing could keep me focused on the lecture. A lesson in travel vocabulary, how to ask for directions what phrases would come in handy. No matter how relevant the lesson might be to my future plans my eyes wandered to the map of South America. It mocked me, with its bright colors and Spanish named cities. Suddenly the anger that I had about not being allowed to do anything, about my predicament in age and experience bubbled inside me. Why wasn't I allowed to do anything, I gritted my teeth letting the anger settle. How could I age as Carlisle had said I would with experiences if I wasn't allowed to have any of my own devices? Hadn't my entire family had their own experiences made their own choices? They had lived their lives and their choices had been theirs, hadn't they? My fists were clenching and everything in my body seemed to ache with stress of anger and then came the scent around me. I was caught off guard by the desirable way the scent of human blood danced around me.

Suddenly the venom gushed into my mouth and the back of my throat burned fiercely. What had happened, nothing was different. I had sense the blood before, I knew all the people in the room. I was rarely so affected by the scent of human blood, had I spent too many days without hunting? I tried to focus on the causes but was taken again by the intensity of desire. I tightly closed my eyes.

I could feel the slower beating hearts around me. Noticing the boy in front of me had a stronger scent and a stronger heart than the coughing girl behind me. I could easily overtake the boy in front of me, a track runner that I could outrun. Maybe before practice I would see if he would carry my books to a quiet place, show interest in him. I had never really thought of a plan to kill anyone, I had never had human blood that I had gotten for myself. Was this what I was missing, the real step to being a vampire I wondered. The pain was overbearing and my vision was distorted by pain. The bell rang and I didn't even know what to do with my emotions, my desires, and my natural instincts but before more debate my phone vibrated.

I answered without thought, without looking at who it was.

"What?" I barked.

"Emmett is coming to get you, now." Alice's voice was steady calm.

"But…" I started.

"No, I suddenly saw something. You have to stop thinking about it, go straight to the office. He will sign you out. Understand?" Alice was firm in her authority, very unlike her usual self.

"Yes ma'am." I said softly, the dryness in my throat was subsiding. I walked without much thought to the office trying not to listen to the beating hearts around me. Such a fancy collection of noises, the faster beats belonging to clumsy couples made nervous by each other and slower beats of students asleep with eyes open. I opened the door to the office, taking in another breath and with every millisecond of it I could sense the blood again. How hard could it be to kill someone, it couldn't be hard? It had to be natural, something with how to lead them away, using my instincts I could seduce them and sink my teeth into them to slowly experience something. I was thinking these thoughts as I mindlessly signed myself out and responded to questions from the front office lady.

"You don't look good Renesmee." The woman commented, and I could feel the flush in my cheeks and knew I must look sick.

"I'm not sure I feel well." I replied faintly. I had only one more period left of the day, English. Had Alice seen something that I did in that class, she sometimes had murky visions of me. Her visions might be getting stronger as I get older, Carlisle was convinced that another few decades and she would be able to see Jacob and myself just as well as she saw them. But if Alice had seen something, if she had sent Emmett to get me, had she seen me finally being a vampire. Had I fallen subject to the gushing venom the intense desire of my body, as I thought about it again my stomach began to knot in hunger. Never had I wanted blood so much, in my short seven years, well that I could really remember. I believe that when I was an infant I demanded the blood that my family willingly gave to me, but there was a difference here. I wanted to hunt. As my eyes began to swim and my mind to wander on some type of action plan to have the woman in the office, I felt the strong grasp of my Uncle Emmett. His giant hand was sitting on my shoulder and I looked up to see him smiling and ever so slightly shaking his head at me.

"I'll be taking her home, thank you." Emmett said to the office lady, before forcefully pulling me out of the office with a guiding hand. I don't know if he expected me to fight him, or if he was just use to being precautionary because of Jasper but he had one hand steady on my shoulder and his other bear arms wrapped around my waist.

"Emmett." I coughed my throat was so uncomfortably dry.

"How did you even get this thirsty?" Emmett's voice seemed disgruntled. I shivered and my eyes prickling with tears as they looked up at my uncles face.

"No I'm not mad at you." He sighed, seeing my face. He seemed annoyed at my pace all of a sudden and had me in his arms as he walked speedily towards the car.

"Emmett?" I questioned again as he placed me in his jeep, quickly strapping me in.

"You don't look well, flushed as if something was wrong. It's so hard to tell if it's normal for you, I think I might call Carlisle." Emmett suggested. Now I understood, he was worrying about me. His strength and impatience was because he didn't understand or have control over the situation. Emmett was never one for patience and he didn't like situations where he couldn't fight a way to his solution. He was driving unbearable slow for him, especially in his jeep. I watched as he shot glances at me and fidgeted with the temperatures in the car though I knew that heat or cool didn't matter to him or to me.

"Why are you driving so slow?" I demanded. He looked at me, his eyes focused on my face before speeding up and not answering my question.

"How was school?" He asked instead. I gritted my teeth annoyed at his ignoring me.

"Great until that last bit there, where I felt like I was…" I stopped, clutching my stomach that was churning again like it had been on campus. My eyes snapped to outside the window, a lemonade stand was sitting on the street corner with a group of grade school children. Emmett caught my action and the car roared as it sped away from the scene.

"What is going on?" I demanded.

"I think you're thirsty." Emmett laughed. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a tin water bottle, my nostrils flared, as I knew what was in the bottle.

"Here." He shoved the bottle towards me, commanding me to drink. Not that I needed to be commanded to drink anything currently. I clutched the bottle, sucking like an infant on it, calming the churning and the burning. Emmett chuckled near me and I hissed at him.

"Slowly princess, Rose and Alice are going to take you hunting tonight. You want to make sure not to over do it with the little bit in that bottle." He commented. I hissed again at him, but I slowed my sucking. I savored the blood that now mixed with my own venom.

"You still look strange." Emmett frowned. The car had stopped and I felt so much better, the dryness gone. I studied the house, smiling at the soft colors and the wrapping porch enjoying the sight of the house in the late afternoon light. The beauty distracted me for a few seconds only snapping back to attention by noticing the mumbling besides me.

"Maybe a bit paler and definitely flushed. She seemed dazed, eyes partially glazed like she was thirsty." Emmett was mumbling into his slim black phone. I threw off my seat belts and threw myself at Emmett, clawing for his phone.

"Renesmee!" His deep voice grumbled from his chest, where I had landed and was sitting clutching at the phone.

"I don't need any attention from Carlisle!" I shouted. Emmett was shocked for less than a second before grabbing me around the waist and lifting me like a toddler over his shoulder. Effortlessly grabbing his phone back as he held me tight, my head and arms over his back as he kept talking to Carlisle.

"She sort of lunged at me." He started saying into the phone.

"Emmett! This is absurd. Put me down, I feel fine!" I shouted at him. He closed the phone, without finishing the conversation I think. I was so anger at him, why couldn't he just ask me before calling Carlisle. Why was everything about me everyone else's business? Couldn't the big brute notice I was obviously feeling better and there was no need to alert everyone else.

"What is wrong with you?" Emmett set me down on the porch, his arms holding me down by the shoulders.

"Why couldn't you talk to me about how I felt instead of calling Carlisle!" I shouted, stamping my foot a bit. I wrapped my fingers around one of Emmett's wrist and transferred thoughts, sick of speaking. My visions were filled with annoyance over everyone watching everything I did, everyone making decisions for me, so much anger was building up in me as each vision passed. Emmett was frowning, but watched each vision that I gave him.

"We are worried. And you still don't look well." He sighed. I snapped again, something about his tone and his weary look made me so mad.

"Stop worrying! I don't need you!" I shouted at him, flying into the house. My fists were clenching and the knotting in my stomach came back. I went to my parents' room, slamming the door as I entered hearing the voices underneath me.

Rose demanding what Emmett did wrong. Alice agreeing that I was acting strange. Emmett grunting he did nothing to deserve being yelled at and how the women in our family were a bit too high strung on occasion. I turned on my father's stereo, turning up the sound and playing his recorded version of my mother's lullaby. I curled up on the large black couch the same one that had come with us across country from the old house. I pulled out my phone to text Jake.

"I yelled at Emmett." I sent the message and sighed. Maybe something was wrong with me. I had never felt the venom gush in my mouth as it had today. The desire to kill had never been as strong as it had been today. Was there something different about me, I jumped to look in the mirror. Little changed noticeably about me these days, my face was the same rounded with the pointed nose and chin like my father's. I ran my hand along my ribs and around my waist, was I taller? Pressing my hand to my head, I didn't think I had grown anymore. I twirled my bronze ringlets that fell down to my waistline. Seth said my hair always reminded him of a Roman Goddess. I smiled at my reflection thinking how other people didn't control a Goddess. My phone went off again and I flipped it opened.

"Having a bad day?" Jake responded back. I smiled, always understood me. I floated my fingers over some letters, responding before really thinking.

"You'll be here later?" I questioned. There was a light knock on the door.

"Nessie." Rosalie cooed to me from the other side. I rolled my eyes at the sweetness mingled with the pleading in her voice. She didn't wait for me to answer the door, but rather glided into the room. I sat down on the couch not glancing towards her but reading the text Jake had sent back.

"Of course :D." It was impossible not to smile thinking of his goofy smile to me. The text version did him no credit. Rosalie started playing with my hair, gliding her hands over each lock as she picked up parts of it in a fancy style above my head. It was soothing to us both when she played with my hair. I rested my head against one of her arms, resting my eyes.

"Is something wrong princess?" She asked quietly, persuasive. I frowned and slide my hand into hers and without speaking I sent her my day. Thoughts of thirst, everything that had made me angry, my desired trip to the rain forests of South America.

"Edward said you were to go to South America next summer darling." She petted. I gritted my teeth. I shook my head frustrated that no one understood how I wanted to go alone on my trip, alone with Jake.

"And for your thirst Alice and I thought we might all go hunting." She ignored my shaking head. I sighed, knowing I wouldn't be able to hide from my family the entire afternoon again like yesterday. Rosalie was looking at me with the same concern as Emmett had in the Jeep and I growled a second.

"Come on then." She grabbed my hand and pulled me up, her concern being changed to a different emotion maybe a combination of shock and excitement? I let her lead me out of the room, she chattered about going on a shopping trip tomorrow afternoon.

"We were thinking you might want some new outfits? For your trip to Forks, and maybe we can find some gifts for Charlie." I let Rosalie gone on, as I watched Alice dance towards me. Her feet seemed to never touch the ground as her toes pointed and her hips swayed. In seconds she was in front of me, her tiny hand sliding into mine. At one point in my life I thought that I would never be as tall as Alice, now I realized what I silly thought that had been. If I was going to be taller than anyone it was going to be Alice, not by much, my parents of course weren't that tall but I was just a bit taller than she was now.

"We will have such a fun time hunting tonight! And then tomorrow you don't have to go to school, we'll have our nice shopping trip and maybe get makeovers." Alice was just as chatty as Rosalie it seemed. They were trying to distract me, make me feel better, spoil me into forgetting whatever it was that was bothering me. Not to mention that by keeping me close they would be able to watch me.

"Alice what did you see?" I said as we got to the bottom of the stairs. I heard my voice echo, it was firm but I knew I was scared. What was I scared of, the answer? Maybe that Alice wouldn't tell me? Or was I scared of what she saw?

Emmett and Jasper were in the living room, playing that stupid video game again. This time it seemed they were playing something that involved guns, some kind of war game. Just up Jasper's alley, he enjoyed anything that involved strategy. I am sure that Emmett was not enjoying the game as much. But the moment I spoke and we reached the bottom of the stairs, my uncles stopped playing. The computer score was quickly changing, higher and higher as Emmett and Jasper dropped their controllers to stare at us.

"I didn't see anything that bad, just a precaution you understand to send Emmett. You know my visions are subjective." Alice hushed me. I felt calmness come over me and I let Jasper have control of my emotions. I looked up at him and smiled, though I knew the look in his eye too well by this point. But there was something different in Jasper, something more like understanding than just worry and concern. I made a mental note to talk to Jasper later, though I knew from the way he was starring at me that he intend to speak to me as well.

"Don't stay out too late. Esme worries you know." Emmett said more to Rosalie and Alice. Again another one of those instances when I wasn't the adult in the room, forever the rest of my family would be the older and wiser. I really didn't think they would ever stop treating me like a child.

"You're wrong, we might." Jasper whispered to me, before sending another wave of calmness. I sighed and smiled at him, he winked but didn't say anything else.

Rosalie and Alice pulled me to the outdoors and let go of me as we reached the edge of the woods, the darkness of the night coming in on us. I took a deep breath of the night air around me and took off in a run towards more darkness, and let the instincts I had fought so poorly this afternoon take hold of me again.

The night went by quickly enough, I think I might have overfed. I felt drunk with fullness, a feeling my parents had taught me to stray away from. We came back half past midnight and I climbed into bed, where Jake was already well asleep waiting for me. I curled up into him easily, letting the annoyance and uncomfortable thoughts from the day melt away from me with his heat. He mumbled questions to me that I didn't really respond to wanting to let him sleep. He hummed out of tune and poorly into my ear, hoping to lull me into sleep I'm sure. It didn't take much tonight to do that, my eyes were closed before I hit the pillow and my dreams had a jump start before my breathing even slowed.

No doubt I fussed a lot during the night, twisting and turning. My dreams were full of dark allies and unanswered questions. I felt myself stretching even in my sleep to grab things just out of my reach and I was exhausted when my eyes fluttered open as the morning light came in. Jake was caressing my face, softly pushing my hair off my forehead. He bent down to kiss my forehead when my eyes fluttered awake.

"Go back to sleep." He sighed into my skin. I wiggled underneath him, further into the covers feeling unnaturally cold for half a vampire.

"What time is it?" I yawned, squeezing my eyes shut again.

"Too early for your shopping trip quite yet. And besides you slept terribly last night, I almost called Edward at one point to sing to you. God knows him and Bella were going half mad that they didn't talk to you yesterday." Jake laughed to himself and I opened my eyes to stare at him. He was getting dressed, changing his shirt near the window.

"Do they…" I started, worried for the question because I feared the answer. He smirked at me without looking down.

"They don't know anything about yesterday. Though I would let Carlisle look you over sometime today it would make them all feel better." The words came out softly, mocking almost in a Jake like way of pushing me to make the right decision. I groaned into the covered and threw them over my head, curling into myself already missing Jake's body from my side. He came over once more, his heat making his proximity known and I poked my head out from under the covers.

"Be nice today?" He questioned mockingly. I gave him an innocent smile, outstretching my hand to wish him a good day. No words were exchanged and he winked before disappearing out the door. I stayed in bed, starring at the ceiling not sure what to do or what to think. I felt tired and knew my dreams had given me nothing but a restless night and I had no desire to return to them currently. I grabbed my phone from the night table, starring at the text message from my mother telling me to call when I awoke. I debated my options, go back to sleep to hopeless dreams, or stare at the ceiling, or get up and face the day, or call my parents. I decided for the last of the options being the least desirable. I pressed the speed dial button, listening impatiently for someone to answer.

"How was the hunting trip precious?" My mother answered. I felt calmer with her voice on the other end. It was terrible how much I missed my parents with them only gone two days. How infantile of me to want them to be home, I knew if I asked they would be back by sunset but I wouldn't.

"Well enough." I replied. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Well yes darling, maybe we will send you and Jake here one day." She said back to me. I heard my father grunt in the background, he didn't seem as inclined to that idea.

"Maybe." I laughed. We were silent for a few moments, what seemed like ages but it wasn't.

"Are you getting ready for school?" She asked me suddenly. I wasn't sure how to respond, should I be telling them I wasn't going? Would they ask me why? I didn't want to explain my day yesterday, and I wanted to deal with their reactions even less.

"I was going to go on a shopping trip with Rose and Alice today. There is this sale in town we wanted to hit, and there is nothing important going on at school." I said. It was a true enough statement. My mother didn't respond this time though.

"You should be going to school." My father stated. I laughed a bit.

"You miss school whenever it's sunny, can't I take sunny days?" I demanded. I found myself getting angry with him, the hypocrisy of the situation making me annoyed. He chuckled into the phone and my annoyance subdued knowing he was not going to make me go to school.

"Yes well, fair point then darling. But try not to miss too much school. Remember we don't want to draw attention to ourselves. You are behaving yourself?" He demanded the last part.

"Of course." I smiled into the phone. "Daddy?"

"Yes?" He responded back. I wasn't sure that I should ask the question that had just come to mind, but I really wanted to know the answers I had been seeking in my dream.

"Why did you decide against Carlisle so long ago?" I asked quietly, shuddering at his possible response.

"Decide against?" He was confused.

"His lifestyle, his diet?" I asked more forcefully this time.

"Why do you ask?" Now his voice was alarmed.

"I had a dream, it was a question I had." I tried being as honest as I could about the situation. But I didn't want to tell my parents, not my perfect mother and tortured father about my thirst yesterday. Not about my dreams where I was sure I had wanted to also kill humans, take their blood and give myself that vampire rite of passage. I knew my mother had been a vampire for seven years. Just as long as I had, and had never had a drop of human blood expect what Carlisle had brought home from the hospital before I was born. But she had never killed anyone and I had heard that my father had killed humans, plenty actually, but all criminals and even those he regretted.

"Princess I can tell you the story when I get back if you really want to hear it, but you know that it took me ten years to think about going against it. I believed in him, in his words and lifestyle, and I do. But there was a moment when I thought I was made a monster to be a monster, I was wrong though." My father hesitated with each word but he told me anyway.

"Yes. Wrong." I repeated the words.

"Is something wrong?" He asked me.

"No, no. I just had a dream." I responded.

"Was it a bad dream?" My mother had taken the phone from him. I shook my head, realizing mid shake that she couldn't see me.

"No. Just made me think." I responded. At that moment there were footsteps coming up the staircase to my room, my mother could hear the steps in the phone and laughed.

"Enjoy your shopping trip. Do be good?" She begged and it was strange that her and my father seemed to think I was being anything but good.

"Yes. Have a good day. Love you." I sighed into the phone before hanging up. Hopefully when my father called one of my other family members, because there was no doubt he would. No one would tell him about my day, please don't call Alice was all I could think. Alice was never very good at keeping things from my father, even over the phone. Alice came prancing into my room, likely not thinking I would be awake yet.

"Oh you are awake!" She sang. I smiled, as it was nearly impossible not to smile at Alice.

"Yes, I am." She danced around me, pulling open curtains and sorting thru clothing piecing together an outfit for me. Though it annoyed me to no end that Rosalie and Alice still picked out my outfits as if I were an infant, I didn't have the heart to make them stop. They loved dressing me. I was just hoping that they might stop doing it soon.

"Aunt Alice?" I stretched out a hand to her, smiling sweetly. She looked over from my clothing, suspiciously walking towards me. She outstretched her hand towards mine, knowing what I wanted to do. I took hold of it lightly lacing my fingers into hers as I started transferring some of the questions to her. Visions of my memories from yesterday, the conversation we had on the phone and the ride with Emmett. I wanted answers. I held onto her fingers tightly even after I finished transferring my questions. Alice sighed and moved onto the bed, sitting down next to me not even trying to pull her hand free.

"I thought I saw something." She started. "But I'm not sure you should worry about it, I have yet to talk to Edward. I didn't want to worry him and Bella while they are on their trip. They were already so worried about leaving you home." Alice rambled for a few seconds, while I sat patiently. I let my visions persist in my questioning.

"It was very cloudy, you know how your future is still very unclear to me. But I saw us, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper and myself searching for you but I couldn't see why or what had happened. I did see your hunger at school, so I thought you might be tempted and maybe would have to run off. It was a precaution you see, just because I couldn't see. Carlisle has never thought you would be overpowered by hunger like any of us have been." Alice looked at me, with those worried eyes. Something was still bothering her, she was still anticipating something but Alice rarely spoke about her visions unless she was positive they were accurate. Because of her difficultly with Jake and me, she rarely shared her visions about us. Well at least she rarely shared them with me.

"Alice?" My voice squeaked. When I had her attention on my face, I asked her if she had ever been overpowered by hungry but without speaking again. She nodded her head, acknowledging the question.

"No. I always knew of Carlisle's lifestyle. You know my visions are what kept me from becoming a savage, as Edward puts it." Alice smiled at me, moving to get up. But I held her tight to me, asking her silently about my Father's thirst overpowering him and his fight to keep my mother alive despite his desire.

"You should ask him." Alice sounded nervous. I shook my head, determined to find answers.

"I'm not going to tell you much about it. I can tell you it took him ten years to defy Carlisle's way of life. Mostly because Carlisle was so sincere in his beliefs, it was hard not to follow them. It took Edward ten years to defy Carlisle and even then he still tried desperately to honor human life by only killing killers. It is a strange thing to have morals as a killer. And that's all I will say on the subject, ask him when he comes home." Alice was determined on that subject, so I decided to ask about the others. She might not want to disclose my father's follies and discretions as a vampire but maybe the others she would tell me about.

I went to send her more questions but she pulled her hand out of mine.

"Let's get you dressed, if you have more questions you can ask them out loud." She stated simply, helping me out of bed.

"What about the others?" I questions begrudgingly out loud. She started picking out accessories for me as I changed into the outfit she had chosen.

"The others, well Rosalie you know fell to preying on humans only once really. It was a bit vengeful, and again you can ask her for the story if you must know. And well Jasper was part of a different family before he found Carlisle and myself. He preyed mostly on humans for a long time, but that is what Vampires do, we are different because we believe and know that we can live differently. And Emmett, he's only faltered a few times on accident and never intentionally. Yes, Edward and Jasper are the only ones of us that have preyed on human blood for long periods of time intentionally." Alice nodded finishing the statement as she was clasping a necklace around my neck.

"Was your thirst confusing?" Alice questioned. I shrugged.

"I hadn't ever really felt anything like it." She nodded understanding.

"Jasper and Carlisle have their theories about it, no need to worry princess. You just remember what you've been taught." Alice smiled at my reflection in the mirror, a perfect combination of color schemes and accessories. The rest of the morning was uneventful in the house as we waited for the cloudy afternoon that Alice had foreseen. It was a few hours of sitting with Esme, Rosalie and Alice planning the stores we would hit and what we would buy. Making a list of clothing items needed for each family member, and so forth. It was nothing that really interested me, but my family was very enthusiastic about shopping and I enjoyed the spools of being babied and spoiled on all shopping trips.

As the overcast weather set in we left for town in Rosalie's convertible red mustang, a new indulgence she had been working on. I had a feeling the car was something she had been working on for me, after I had commented I might want a mustang as my first car. The shopping trip went by quickly enough, nothing out of the ordinary for us until we arrived at the last store. Esme and Alice had gone a bit overboard in the antiques store, which was to be expected and we were waiting for Jasper and Emmett to come out with the Jeep to help us take our purchases home. While we were waiting, Rosalie dragged me over to a little boutique shop where she loved the coat in the window for me.

"Rose I don't need another coat!" I whined. They had already bought me three coats, four tops, and six pairs of shoes today alone. I was weary of trying on outfits and parading them around for my aunts and grandmother to coed at me.

"This one would be perfect with that adorable purple scoop neck that Alice bought you earlier." Rosalie squealed at me as we entered the store. I dragged my feet a bit, frowning at my predicament. I was tired and wanted to see Jacob and maybe Seth, I hadn't spent time with them in days at their apartment and it was coming to the point where I needed time away from my family.

Standing in the store for less than ten minutes, Rosalie had piles of clothing and shoes for me to try on.

"I don't want to try anything on!" I whined, shaking my head vigorously. Rosalie waved her hand at me.

"Don't be silly, look at all these precious outfits. You will look splendid in this color, but we should make sure they go well together…" She mumbled to herself some more as she picked out a few more items. The sale person was delighted with the prospect of a huge sale, but I just grew more and more frustrated as I stood in the middle of the small store refusing to help with the shopping.

"Go on try everything on." Rosalie pushed me towards the fitting room.

"I don't want anything else today." I gritted my teeth. My patience had disappeared and my temper was flaring.

"Renesmee, be a good girl and try on a few more outfits then we will go." Rosalie petted my shoulder and I could feel the blood rising in my cheeks. The sales person was excitedly running from the pile Rosalie had assembled to the dressing room. In her passing, I caught her scent. A delicate mixture of honey and lime, sweet but not too sweet and I craved her. I wanted the sales girl's blood and I wanted to shout at Rosalie, I wasn't even sure what desire was stronger.

"Stop being difficult." Rosalie snapped at me. My attention got taken away from the scent, even as the venom pumped into my mouth.

"I'm not being difficult! Stop treating me like a child!" I screamed at Rosalie.

"Hush now, don't scream." Rosalie grabbed my hand, I saw a flash of a mother grabbing an unruly toddler and I became livid. I bite down on my lip and transferred my thoughts, my indignation to her "loudly" and vividly. She let go of my hand, upset by my sudden bombardment on her own thoughts. I ran out of the store leaving Rosalie behind with her piles of clothing and shoes. Rosalie was going to be livid with me because she wouldn't stand for my behavior. Storming off the sidewalk I slammed into Jasper, hard enough to make an unnatural crashing noise.

"Nessie?" He questioned, grabbing hold of my shoulders. I didn't look at him as I tried desperately to shake him off.

"So much anger." Jasper whispered. He was measuring the emotion in me, and probably noticed the most prominent was my anger.

"And thirsty again?" He seemed confused by that one, but before I could respond or resist him anymore he washed me with chilling peace.

"Jasper." I choked his name, in a whisper.

"You and I should talk. You get into the jeep, I will have Emmett go with Rosalie and Alice." Jasper commanded me. There was no question in his direction, he wasn't recommending we should talk but demanding it. That was the different between Jasper and Emmett, Alice and Rosalie. Jasper treated me lovingly, cared and spoiled me but also had a firm and forceful tone with me when needed. He was a quiet man, so when he spoke it was commanding and well thought. He could see the resistance in my eyes but shook his head and changed my mood to being agreeable, He signaled to Emmett. I walked quietly without meeting Alice's eyes to the jeep and seated myself in the passenger seat knowing I wouldn't be able to convince Jasper to let me drive after my outburst.

Here I was sitting in the jeep, like a naughty child, in the middle of one the busiest streets in Hanover. My arms crossed over my chest instinctively as I glared out the window towards my family. The five of them looking more like a page out of catalog, rather than four college students and a housewife. Leaning forward on the dashboard I stared at their beauty and their grace, each of them stood with perfect posture. Rosalie's golden hair curled flawless into the nook of her back as she carefully swayed while talking rapidly to Emmett. Emmett's broad shoulders towered over Rosalie, protective and naturally, as the dimples formed effortlessly on his face. While Alice was like a painting in life, one of Monet's Ballerina's physically standing before me. She was standing on the tip of her left toe, while tucking her right toe pointed behind her left ankle it was one of the most graceful positions I had ever seen anyone stand in for long periods of time. Then there was Jasper standing with his arms behind his back, attentive and tipping his head like a gentleman out of the 19th century in the presence of a lady. My family was an artist's dream, standing together conversing in their timeless appearances.

It was like getting to watch one of those penny picture shows, the original movies, where it was just flickering pictures in front of a candle. Not hearing words but seeing the actions, being focused on the details of the characters and their surroundings. My family intrigued me with their movements and their appearances and mostly how their experiences affected their interactions with each other. My concentration was broken when I saw Jasper float towards me, moving like a toy solider. His smile was miniscule almost non-existent as he looked at me his eyes seemed ready for a battle in the distance. I caught myself looking behind me, wondering who was silly enough o fight with Jasper. Seeing nothing it took me a second to realize he was heading to me, was I the battle he was ready to fight?

Jasper jumped into the car, he was much louder and purposefully less graceful than the rest of my family something about his military and political history. He was quiet, probably planning his conversation before speaking as he started the car. I waited, fidgeting with my hands lightly worried about how determined Jasper looked. I never truly knew what to expect with him, it wasn't often that I had merited being in trouble with Jasper. I wasn't even sure that I was in trouble with Jasper now, but it sure felt like it.

"Care to explain what you've been feeling?" Jasper asked. Lovely, no beating around the bush.

"Feeling?" I squeaked. His eyes didn't move from the road, even though he didn't need to look at the road to drive, as I knew.

"Alice said something about you asking about our possible transgressions." Jasper prodded. When I didn't respond, mostly because I didn't know how he kept going.

"And Emmett commented you got angry with him in the car, and the other night with Carlisle you seemed to lose your temper. Then there was the problem you had with the thirst, were you thirsty in the store there after getting angry at Rosalie?" Jasper asked, now he looked at me. His eyes bore into mine, his golden eyes that flickered with specks of red unlike the others eyes. Battle scares even in his eyes, Jasper wasn't someone you lied to easily because he would know.

"Yes." I whispered. Why did I feel like I was receiving a scolding? Jasper wasn't speaking harshly or any louder than usual, his words were anything but angry and I was confused.

"Have you noticed any increase in strength?" He asked. We had reached the house and Carlisle was speedily heading towards the car. Esme must have called him, or one of the others alerting him to our arrival. I scanned the area around us looking for Rosalie's car but it was nowhere to be seen.

"They aren't here. Answer the question." Jasper commanded, though there was little need as he ensured with his abilities that I would answer him.

"I haven't noticed." I shrugged.

"Why haven't you paid attention?" He baited me. I snapped my head to look at him now the tone in his question, the authority and paternal nature snapping me out of acting contrite.

"I didn't know I was suppose to." I spat the words slowly and spitefully. He nodded and looked towards me now, his eyes piercing into mine.

"Has there been venom?" He asked. Carlisle had reached my door and was opening it in time to hear the question, not that the door would have prevented him in hearing it.

"Yes." I whispered this response, my voice losing its power as Jasper guessed all of my symptoms of the last days. "What is happening?"

"Jasper seems to think…" Carlisle started.

"I'm almost sure Carlisle." Jasper inserted.

"Yes well, I'm not quite yet. The strength hasn't been apparent, and well it seems unlikely. I wish that I had heard back from…" Carlisle didn't finish his thought before I exploded.

"Will either of you care to explain to me what is happening to ME?" I demanded. I was not about to sit there like a chastised child without so much as inkling to what my condition might be according to my family. Carlisle and Jasper exchanged a knowing look and I become more livid as the seconds passed.

"You might be developing as a Vampire." Jasper started.

"What does that mean?" I was desperate for answers now, for something to explain the odd sensations of desire and anger that were controlling my current existence.

"Well you've spent the last six years developing as a human child would. You have grown, gone in and out of phases, learned in a process faster than normal children but still learning. But you are in what we believe to be your last year of true development, and you are half vampire." Carlisle explained calmly. I stared at him, not understanding what his point was and getting impatient.

"WHAT DOES IT MEAN?" I demanded again, my high pitch not startling either of them though I saw Jake look down at me from my balcony window.

"It means that you might be experiencing some variation of newborn years for vampires." Jasper stated simply. Why couldn't they have said that to begin with, why the long drawn out explanation? It wasn't as if I really understood what either meant to me but the later was something more of what I could grasp. Newborn years, I had remembered the first few months with my mother and myself. Jasper had been worried, hovered a bit about her fearing her newborn cravings and strength. What else did I know about newborns but that?

"Maybe try actually answering my question this time." I snapped at Jasper, I kicked my foot a bit at the floor of the jeep. Jasper watched my every movement and I could tell he was monitoring my every breath.

"I don't know what it means." Jasper shrugged. That was it, I had spent all this time in the car listened to all that exposition not to get my answer. Wonderful.

"You are ALL impossible!" I shouted trying to jump out of the car, only to jump into Carlisle who held me steady in mid jump.

"Renesmee, you must listen to me for a second." He demanded, and I was paralyzed with an imposed desire to remain. I glared at Jasper who moved slyly to Carlisle's side. I said nothing, though not by choice, but again by Jasper's doing.

"If you are experiencing newborn years, you might be dangerous to not only us but also to humans. You must be careful, you must try to control yourself though we are not sure you can. Also we don't know what this means for you, I have tried to get a hold of Nahuel and his family to discover the tendencies they have experienced but I have yet to hear word." Carlisle was saying to me.

Explanation that told me that my family had known something might happen. They had known what was happening to me and not told me. Again I was left out of the very things that involved me, I was not a child. They had to understand! They meant to keep me from developing as a Vampire!

"What if I want to be a Vampire!" I shouted. Carlisle and Jasper looked confused at each other, I thought for a second, but then decided that it was a knowing belittling glance they shared about me.

"You are half vampire." Carlisle sighed. I fought and as my anger grew my strength did as well, but it seemed that Jasper had been prepared for that. As I wiggled out of Carlisle he took hold of me, in a battle stance I had never seen before. I was aware of my surroundings suddenly overtaken with the emotion of anger.

Get away! Get away from these people, they were wrong. I struggled against my attacker. I wanted to run. Run and find blood, human blood. The scent of the honey, the lime, all the scents of earlier were now vivid and controlling. Every thought I had was about the blood that I had smelled, the blood I could almost taste in my mouth. I was trashing against the attacker strongly, trashing but unable to shake him. I was stuck, what was wrong?

"Nessie? Jasper what are you doing!" I heard the screaming around me. Names, faces I should recognize. Another set of hands pushing me to the ground, harshly.

"Renesmee!" More voices, frantic. I clawed and let my fangs out harshly biting into the flesh near me. Then I heard a heartbeat, pumping blood. I wanted blood but before I took a bite into another arm, I heard a second heartbeat faster and closer. That's when I remembered who I was and where I was and who's heartbeat I had heard. The red that had overpowered my color scheme for the last few minutes was gone and I stopped struggling.

"Jake!" I whined and before anyone could stop him he was over me, his arms protectively around me.

"Be careful Jacob." Jasper warned, hovering near my arms. I was sure he was ready to wrestle me back to the ground if he needed to.

"She's fine aren't you?" Jake asked me tenderly. I nodded nestling into his chest, not wanting to look at my family's faces. I noticed that Emmett had been the other arm that had thrown me to the ground. Rosalie, Alice and Esme stood at a distance but near enough to have helped. I slipped my hand under Jake's shirt, feeling his warmth and knowing I was safe while transferring thoughts. Letting him know I wanted nothing more than to be removed from this place, this moment, and my family.

"I'm going to take her upstairs. She's tired." Jake announced.

"Is that a good idea?" Emmett's voice was questioning, I'm sure the question was directed to Jasper.

"I'm unsure. She can't hurt Jake. We would know if he needed our help." Jasper was torn, his voice was unsure of what he should do next.

"Let him take her." I heard Rosalie's voice crack from somewhere. I could imagine her hurt face that went with her voice, she would have rather torn her own arm off than let Emmett push me to the ground and I knew it. No one stopped Jake or questioned us more after that moment, I could feel my anger towards Jasper and Carlisle rising. Why were they so unhelpful, why couldn't they have just informed me about what might happen?

I left my hand under Jake's shirt, my head resting comfortably in his chest. When we entered my room, I had formulated a plan. Without a word, with all the power to persuade that I had from natural instinct and talent I transfer the idea to Jake. I knew he would try to resist but I also knew he would do anything I wanted and it was against his nature, against his ability to deny me things.

We would leave. We would run away. Just for a little while, away from my prying family. We would go to find answers, to where I wanted to be, to let me become more independent and vampire like. I wanted this so much, I transferred as much desire as I could with the visions of us leaving, catching the plane and landing in the jungles of South America.

"But how?" Jake looked concerned and hesitates but not denying me. I looked up pleading with him and not understanding what the problem was.

"When?" He asked, though he knew I meant now.

"They think I am taking a nap. If we go out, if I go out the window and you let them know I want to hunt." I suggested.

"Jasper would never let us hunt alone." Jake shook his head.

"Convince them." I replied.

"How?" He was desperate now, thinking only of failure.

"Somehow. I will collect money from my parent's petty cash safe. I have the American Express that daddy gave me for emergencies and the fake papers mom made for us are in the safe. We can go to the airport and catch the next flight and be gone before they could even think to look at an airport." I whispered the words, breathless knowing that someone was probably listening intently for me.

"But how?" Jake looked unconvinced by my plan.

"Convince them, tell them I must get some fresh air. That I want to hunt before sleeping that I was overly upset. But I don't want them to come." I squirmed, demanding.

"Figure it out!" I demanded. Jake stared at me and nodded putting me down.

"This might not be a good idea." He mumbled.

"It's what I want." I replied, not daring to concede he might be right.

"And your parents?" He tried the last angle he had left.

"Are on some island off the coast as well. They shouldn't have to worry about me, we will come back sooner or later." I responded without looking at him long I turned to head down the stairs to my parents' room, to the safe that held the key to our escape.

"Grab the stuff, hide it well. Then come downstairs, STAY CALM." Jake commanded. "If you want this to work."

I nodded prepared for the show we were about to put on to get out of the house without them. It would work. It had to work. I wanted nothing more in the world than for it to work, and I got what I wanted always.


	3. Remember that moment when I thought

**3. Remember that moment when I thought this was a bad idea. Maybe someone will say something nice at my funeral… **

Jacob

_I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death._

–Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

My whole surroundings shook, like an earthquake except worse. Why worse? Because instead of just the ground shaking and everything that was attached to the nice stable ground, it was a heap of metal thousands of miles above the ground. The lights flickered a bit and some mumbled voice above my head, like god, announced something about turbulence. My heart was pounding, possibly because I was nervous, but the pounding in my chest was nothing like the thumping in my head. Just what I needed, a splitting headache while thousands of miles above the ground in the dead of the night on the way to South America, perfect. Oh! Not to mention that I was sitting next to the reason for my headache, the origin of my predicament, and the reason for my very existence, Nessie was snuggled into my shoulder asleep.

I thought I was the one who could sleep anywhere, how was she asleep in this death trap that was taking us to our doom. Ok, I might be somewhat dramatic it wasn't taking us to our doom, just mine. Definitely mine. It had been no easy task getting out of the Cullen house earlier this evening. But it wasn't even a possibility to fail because Nessie wanted to leave and so we had to leave. She had been determined, pleading and beautifully angry about the whole situation and I had been putty in her hands. I couldn't say I agreed with this completely, running off to the Amazons when the love of my existence was slightly kooky was just not looking like the best option. But here I was on the plane, after having taken off in Rosalie's mustang in a speedy hurry after tricking a house full of vampires that could and will be ripping my head off when they find me. After dropping an absurd amount of money, with a real black American express card, on first class tickets to a flight leaving moments after we arrived at the airport. It was like a scene out of one of those rich and famous shows, what Renesmee wanted she got. I groaned just thinking about the bill on the Black American Express, Edward was going to crucify me.

Actually, crucifying me would be mild compared to what Edward might do to me. Quartered and Drawn, that might be closer definitely more painful and more medieval. Carlisle would know how to do it, he probably saw most of the age of public discipline the British were unkind to the body of criminals. Though I doubted that Carlisle would even wish that kind of pain on me, or really on anyone so I couldn't think I was special the man was just saint like. As I sat there thinking about how the Cullen's might kill me, my thoughts were intercepted by Nessie's slumbering dreams she naturally gave to me.

Leave it to her to thinking about the fun and adventure in the jungles we were heading towards. Images of a dopey South American Map came into focus, one that reminded me of high school, and then I saw the rest of her classroom and realized that it was a high school. Randomly the visions I saw in my mind were tinted red, and I understood her desire as she shown them to me of drinking the blood of the people in the room. Her hand slipped and the transferring stopped and I frowned down at her. Maybe Jasper had been right, maybe I should have tried to have more will power and not let her convince me of this. I thought back to the living room of the Victorian House, that I had called home last year. I had been the distraction and the force in getting us out of the house against the family's better judgment. I had appealed to Rosalie's need for Nessie to be happy, to Jasper's need to be precautious, to Emmett's desire to not have a headache anymore, to Carlisle's worry over her health, and Esme's worry for everyone. All in a few sentences I had convinced them that the best thing for her anger, for her health, for her current state was just a bit of time away with people she couldn't hurt. Well we didn't think she could hurt us, vampire venom could kill us but Nessie was not like the rest of them, she wasn't poisonous. It had something to do with her half-breed state of being, but she had venom more as extra way to slow her prey rather than hurt her prey. I coaxed them, but Jasper had stared at me weary like a general going into battle. He knew and I knew he knew there was something else going on. There was no way for me to mask my emotions on that, it was possible he just thought I felt they would never agree it was the same type of anxiety. But I could never be sure what Jasper did and didn't know, how he understood the emotions around him was something beyond me. If I lived long enough to talk to him again, I would maybe ask more questions.

Before we left Jasper had caught me with one of his arms, pulled me aside for a fraction of a second while Esme and Rosalie crowded Nessie making sure she was actually feeling better and wearing layers and such.

"Keep your phone on." Jasper said firmly, threatening. I stared at him innocently, attempting to keep calm.

"And be careful, she might be stronger than you. And she might want your blood." Jasper said the words carefully, but with enough force to make sure I understood the gravity of the situation at hand. We left at that moment, borrowing Rosalie's car and speeding away quickly hoping nothing would come to Alice clearly enough until it was too late. My phone had been ringing when Nessie had shut it off and I had snapped my seat belt in, Jasper was going to be angry. I shivered, if I was afraid of Edward it was nothing compared to what I thought Jasper might do to me. I mean the guy had fought a war and he had been a young commander in the Civil War. Not only that, but as a vampire Jasper had directed armies of terrifying newborns against others and done it without fear. The guy had looked me in the eye and given me a command, a direct order for not only my safety but also the safety of his niece, his family and others and I had ignored him. To be fair, she had ignored it for me but still Jasper didn't seem like he would stand for it. I had seen him fight, a lethal combination of Southern Grace and strategic fists.

"Stop worrying." Nessie mumbled at me. I snapped out of my thoughts, how did she know that I was worrying? Seeing my white knuckles clutching the end of my seat, I knew how she knew. Sucking in the recycling air around me, I felt the tension of my body loosening and I smiled sweetly at Nessie.

"Where are we landing?" I asked.

"Bogotá." Nessie responded. "We will get into the city, take a connecting flight to a smaller rural airport where we can find some locals to take us into the jungles. I am not sure where we will go from there."

"Imagine a plan created from the straws we were grasping and you might not know what we are doing after entering the dangerous jungle of South America." I rolled my eyes at her.

"Are you going to be difficult?" She demanded, I laughed. The words coming in her voice, sounded some much like Edward.

"I am never as difficult as you, Nessie you are queen of being difficult and unruly. A complete terror really." I laughed a bit.

"Stop it!" Nessie smacked my arm a bit. We sat in silence for a bit, starring out the dark window thinking our own thoughts for a few minutes.

"Renesmee?" I nudged my nose into her hair.

"Hm…" She mumbled at me, without removing her eyes from the window. Thinking about her plan, no doubt to find our friends.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked her. She snapped her head and looked at me, her eyes flickering with brimming anger.

"Don't you trust me?" She hissed.

"Look love, I love you more than I think you can understand. I am fearful that this might not be good for you. It seems Jasper thought you might be doing something you might regret." I soothed her and I had heard the conversation between the family before I had entered the room. Jasper had been fighting with the rest of them that Nessie was on the verge of her first kill, of drinking human blood. The rest of the family seemed vehemently against the very idea that Nessie would do such a thing, she was half human and would never do that.

"What might I regret, are you like my family. Do you think I shouldn't be a vampire? Maybe if I become a vampire fully, I would not be their baby anymore. If I took that rite of passage, if I drank human blood…" She was speaking rather loudly and I shushed her at the words human blood.

"If I did it." She ignored my face, looking down at my hands. "Maybe I would stop getting treated like the weak link in my family. Maybe I would be viewed on their level."

"Bella has never killed anyone." I whispered. She screeched loudly, I placed my hand over her mouth.

"It's ok Nessie. It's ok; you don't have to be like Bella. You can be your own person. We won't think of it anymore. We will do whatever you want." I pacified her and I gave her what she wanted. Removing my hand, I replaced my hand with my lips, kissing her into silence.

"Let's sleep some more, we have a great deal of traveling ahead of us." I whispered into her ear, kissing her cheek before ducking down in my seat and preparing for sleep.

"You'll still love me?" Nessie yawned quietly into me shoulder.

"I've always loved you." I responded softly before sleep came to me again. The rest of the flight was much more peaceful for me, because I was dead to the shaking and the stiffness of the recycled air. The light hit my face and I jerked awake as the voice of the plane god announced our arrival to Bogotá City, Colombia. I hit my knee pretty damn hard when I woke up, for first class seats there could have been more legroom. Nessie was glowing naturally and I smiled thinking how she achieved looking like a magazine model without the help of a computer. I was dating the perfect woman.

"Here." I stated and her eyes flapped open, her eyelashes moving like they belonged to one of the fancy porcelain dolls she had played with for three weeks when she was two. Her lips curled upward, smiling as she stretched out like a cat uncurling from a nap ready to pounce on the world. After the almost seven hours we had been on a plane, I was not looking forward to jumping onto another plane even if it might only be for less than an hour. Nessie pulled me off the plane, and led me into the airport. I was bombarded with the slights and sounds around me, alert to possible dangers and the strangeness of the differences of this airport and Hanover's. It was large, looked like any other airport maybe with more colors, and the smell of coffee dancing around me. A cup of coffee didn't sound like a bad idea and mornings were not my favorite time of day. Mornings in another country might merit me finding a cup of coffee. Nessie pulled me into a shop, a tourist place that had all sorts of souvenirs.

"Babe I think I'm going to get some coffee from across the way there. Do you mind?" I asked as I pulled my hand out of her tiny delicate fingers. She shook her head, intently looking for something around her. I didn't ask about it but walked away, as soon as I was out of the store I shoved my hand into my pockets. In my pant pocket I felt my cell phone, without much thought I pulled it out and turned it on. As soon as it was on, it vibrated frantically. Fifteen voicemails, right like I was going to listen to all of those. I licked my lips and before even thinking about listening to them I attempted to remember how to speak any Spanish.

"Por Favor…" I started and when nothing came to mind I pointed at the cup of coffee and pulled out a five-dollar bill. A young girl, maybe early twenties, so not that young handed me a cup of coffee and took the five dollars and went to pulled out change. She started speaking to me, probably to tell me she didn't have change in dollars but I shook my head.

"Keep it." I shrugged and started walking away, the aroma of the coffee was wonderful. Frank Sinatra might have been right about the coffee of Colombia, was that him that said it. Maybe not that might have been a song about the coffee of Brazil, maybe I would get to try their coffee before my trip was over. I cringed as I felt my phone went on a vibrating fritz, I looked down hoping it wasn't ringing and sighed in relief when I noticed the damn thing was just upset that I had fifteen voicemails. I pushed the button and pressed the cold material to my ear.

"Jake the phone has been ringing off the hook, the Cullens think you are coming here. Why would you be coming here, Carlisle seemed worried about something, what have you done, what is going on?" My father's voice was tense, sort of like the tone he had always had when my older sisters snuck back into the house after their curfews and he caught them.

"Jacob, people are concern about where you are with my granddaughter. You better remember I'm a sheriff, you shouldn't do anything you aren't suppose to…" Charlie rambled a bit more, and I sighed. Had they called everyone?

"Man, the vampires are looking for you. Though I'm sure you know, whatever you are doing, remember you want to keep her well." Embry sounded like he was amused with the whole situation.

"JACOB BLACK YOU BETTER WISH TO GOD THAT I NEVER FIND YOU." The screaming could have been heard on the plane that was just taking off. I held the phone at arms length as I used my thumb to push down the volume as I assumed none of the other messages would be any quieter. I skipped the yelling Bella, to the next message.

"You listen to me Jacob, I will be much less violent towards you if you make yourselves known. You understand, I don't know why you're phone is off but as soon as you turn it back on you call me and let me know what the hell is going on with MY daughter." Edward's voice was dangerously low, I almost had to turn the volume back up but I knew better. I skipped the rest of that message to get to laughter.

"Man you are so going to get hung." Seth was laughing so much I could barely understand him. That kid took pressure so badly; I knew he was probably terrified of the high alert the Cullens were on. I skipped on, deleting.

"I warned you to keep your phone on…" Jasper voice was a low whisper like Edwards, damn. I was dead. My finger treaded on the skip button.

"Jacob listen, you have to be careful. I can't see, but it seems you might run into trouble in a jungle? What are you doing in a jungle." Alice's voice was confused and distance and I was sure that she was seeing something while calling me.

"She might not be well Jake, take care of her and watch her temperature. Please call as soon as you can, and know that we are worried for both of you." Carlisle's calm and patient voice so much more forgiving than the rest.

"JACOB BLACK you have been gone for four hours! No One knows where you are!" Bella again. No need to blow out my eardrums for that.

"Jake I like you, no reason I won't tear you limb from limb if we don't hear from you soon. We called Seth and they said they hadn't seen or heard from you guys…" Emmett's voice wasn't angry, or threatening really just regular Emmett giving me the straight facts.

"I trusted you! You Mutt! Where have you taken her! What have you done? Stupid dog." Such a loving woman that Rosalie!

"Jake, please, please come back. I know it's her that has asked you for this, but this is about her safety. About all of us, remember we are your family as well." Esme voice was pleading to me, and I felt a twinge more of regret than I had with the others.

"You moron, the vampires are freaking out. And Seth and I don't know where you might have gone. When are you going to learn to think before…" Leah was in lecture mode, no reason to listen to all of that.

"She might want to drink blood, wanted to make sure you knew that." Jasper left the one sentence message. I threw a glance over my shoulder and Nessie was walking towards me with her smile wide and her warm brown eyes twinkling at me and I smiled. That was the last of them, I wasn't even sure if the last one from Jasper was sent before or after they figured out that we were gone.

"You turned your phone back on?" Nessie frowned at me. I nodded and took a sip of the coffee before making a suggestion I knew she might not like.

"Maybe you should too." I nudged.

"Not until we get off the next plane, then I will listen to the messages. Don't even think about calling anyone back yet." She commanded, pointing her finger at me.

"What did you get?" I asked eyeing the bag she had in her right hand.

"A map!" She giggled but then grabbed my hand and led me away towards another gate. I was thinking our next plane must be boarding, though I had no idea how she kept track of everything. My head was swimming with the pounding headache that had come back, and all the different voices yelling my name. I let her take me; I am sure I would follow her off a cliff if her heart desired it so. My phone vibrated again, and I pulled it out mindlessly to look at the text message I received.

"I think your phone is on. And you haven't called. Bad move." Edward was scary sometimes. I turned the phone off, I knew I would be talking to him or Bella soon enough. No need to taunt them, I might be able to convince him that the phone had lost reception. I didn't think we were going to be telling them where we were, not off the bat anyway. We shuffled onto our plane and sat in our seats, as soon as we were off the ground and it was allowable, Nessie had the food trays down. She spread out a map of South America she had bought in the store and out of her fancy purse she pulled out a stack of papers and a red pen.

"What is all of this?" I demanded, still sipping at my cooling coffee.

"The plan. These are letters from our friends, giving me some details of where we might be able to find them. And with our map we should be able to figure it out, if we start in this jungle outside of the town we are going to and then travel south. I am not sure where they might be. I was thinking that maybe in wolf form you might be able to pick up their scent." Nessie was radiant and her over excitement to the adventure ahead of us was slightly glittering off her skin. I let her chat about the plan, about where we would be going with me responding slightly nodding and giving approval where it was needed, but mostly I watched her. The way her lips curled around a smile that would make a dentist jealous, I smiled at the way her hair twirled perfectly except for the tiny strands that fought to be free of curling. Or I watched how her wrists held perfectly still as she moved her fingers slowly and carefully over her path. It was a marvel to watch her, to soak in her grace and beauty and excitement. I hoped she wouldn't grow out of her excitement for life, Edward said that vampires rarely change but Nessie was only half vampire and she had changed so often. Not only had she changed physically, growing and developing into an adult but her personality had grown and changed. She spoke more now, out loud. She sought more answers to her questions, she questioned the wisdom of her family more readily, and she had become more passionate and clumsier. I didn't ever know what to expect when I awoke next to her in the mornings. I certainly had never expected to be on a plane in South America when I had arrived at the house yesterday afternoon.

The plane landed and I had absorbed my girl's beauty and plan all in a short 45 minute period in the air. I walked with her this time, out of the plane and into a taxi that left us on the edge of town. Standing at the edge of civilization and jungle, I knew it was time to put my foot down.

"We'll turn my phone back on. I've listen to all the messages already." I stated, not leaving room for much argument. She looked at me, her eyes big and innocent but I didn't take the time to dwell as I pushed the on button. The phone vibrated, another three voicemail messages. Seriously guys I get the picture, people are mad, I am going to meet my death and destruction. How was this going to get me to call anyone back? I ignored the messages and pressed 4, Edward's speed dial. I might be scared of Edward, but I was definitely not dealing with Bella. As the phone rang I felt Nessie's move away from me, without much thought I threw my arm around her waist. She wasn't going to leave me to deal with her parents by myself, I would call and I would take the initial yelling but then she got the phone.

"You are in so much trouble." Edward commented as the phone stopped ringing almost before it began.

"Usually." I mumbled.

"JACOB BLACK!" Bella shouted in the background, but Edward didn't give up the phone to her.

"What is going on, why has no one heard from you? Where are you?" Edward asked.

"We're safe." I replied with the only answer I could think safe. I didn't wait for the response I handed the phone to Nessie.

"Daddy calm down." She hushed.

"Don't tell me to calm down young lady." Edward's voice had gotten louder with Nessie. He was sneaky with me being threateningly quiet but with Nessie he couldn't withhold his parental anger.

"I am safe. I am fine. Jake is with me, nothing is going to happen. We're around, tell mom to stop yelling." Nessie was speaking quickly.

"The phone won't be on, we want to save the battery. Love you daddy and you too mom!" She was saying over the yelling now.

"RENESMEE. You tell me where you are this instant." Edward was not having it, but Nessie seemed not to notice the yelling.

"Bye, enjoy the rest of your trip." She hung up, as the call ended Bella's name was flashing on the screen calling back. Nessie shook her head and turned off the phone.

"We'll call them tomorrow maybe." She commented as she slid the phone back into my pocket. Unbelievable. I was going to die a slow and painful death. Wait until they figured out where we were. And we didn't even call the rest of the family back, though I was sure that Edward was on the phone at this moment with Carlisle or maybe Jasper. Could I outrun them? No, not even close. I could outrun Emmett, maybe even Jasper but never Edward.

"Do you not want me around anymore, I mean I could leave that might be easier than setting up this whole thing so you're family kills me." I sighed. Nessie laughed.

"I couldn't live without you and don't be silly none of them are going to kill you." She laughed and tossed her bronze curls at me as she started walking into the jungle. Had I known that this would be the last time I saw the sun for a few days I might have basked in that moment a bit longer, but I didn't.

The next three days were a strange combination of dreamlike existence. Not even really worth remembering though I saw some cool jungles. I will forever give my lose change to saving the rainforest though I might never want to see it up close again. Besides that it was three days of being sticky from the moisture that just existed under trees that never seemed to end. We wandered, heading in the general southern direction with Nessie feeding on predators' blood of large cats, snakes, etc. While I eat fruits we could decipher as being safe and whatever I could hunt as wolf, we could say I starved for three days. This would be one of the few moments in the last six almost seven years I might have questioned why I would follow Renesmee Cullen until the ends of the earth. We didn't talk to the Cullens for those three days in the dark, wet rainforest where there was no way in hell there would be any reception and I fancied the ways I would die in my sleep. The Cullens were going to murder me, there was no doubt in my mind by the time we reached the rain forest end with no more hope of finding anyone than when we entered.

When looking back I don't know why we spent three days in that rainforest on a map it doesn't look big. Granted I might have learned that maps are subjective and a picture can't really tell me how big a place truly is. When we reached the edge, I was famished for real food and ready for something soft to sleep on. I could have lived as a wolf easily enough in the rainforest, but the problem had been that I could only be in wolf form for a few hours because I couldn't leave Nessie alone. Leaving Nessie alone in a rainforest where anything could happen to her was terrifying and unnecessary. I could deal with the thoughts of the death that was awaiting me in Hanover, but I could not bear what might happen to Nessie in that South American haven.

"Nessie, do you even know where we are and where we're going?" I demanded as we reached the edge of the jungle on that third day, sometime in the middle of the day. We reached what I thought was the end anyway, there was a clearing and the air wasn't as heavy. We were in what seemed like a clearing, there might even be somewhat of a village as I could see rooftops in the distance and some kids playing.

"We are near the edge of Colombia, if we run the rest of the way for a little we should hit the Amazon Basin, and the beginning of Brazil. We should be able to find them in the Amazon." Nessie responded, starring at her map.

"Are you telling me we are going into more Jungle?" I groaned. She whipped around and smiled sweetly at me. Her dimples forming perfectly on her checks, and even though her hair was sticking in every direction with twigs and leaves stuck in it she still looked heavenly.

"Just a little bit more?" She leaned into me, kissing me on the cheek. I hate her smile, possibly as much as I hate rain forests. If I survived this I would be putting my foot down about trips to uncivilized jungle places for an unpredictable period of time.

"Can we find food before we travel into the Amazon Basin?" I whined. She smiled and nodded, prancing towards the town that I saw in the distance. I could smell the odd spices and strong scents of food in the air and my mouth watered for some kind of protein, I was sick of fruits. Though the tropical fruit you could find in South America was much better than what I had found in the southern area of Canada when I had run off a few years back as a wolf. I followed my prancing light, the girl of my dreams and existence and decided to try my phone again. I slipped out the little phone, covered in streaks of sweat and beads of jungle water, and hoped it would still work. I pressed the on button for a second and let it sit in my hand as it woke to its surroundings. After about three point six seconds it started flashing, vibrating and beeping at me. Voicemail box full, please delete. The words flashed and commanded me on the screen. Great full, that meant they were more than a little displeased. I pressed the phone to my ear and took a deep breath.

"FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY!" Edward's voice was no longer the calm and threatening voice it had been three days ago. I deleted and skipped.

"Three DAYS?" Jasper's voice also less calmed and controlled. Delete. Skip.

"Something is wrong. Something seems wrong. She might feed." Alice's voice, distraught. I frowned and listened to the rest of her message.

"Jacob, she might give in. She seems to want to drink blood; she wants the rite of passage. Be careful." That was all she said, did she know where we were. What did Alice mean she wanted to, what kind of rite of passage. No Nessie knew that drinking blood wasn't something fulfilling, her family had proven that to her hadn't they? I saved the message, but skipped to the next one.

"IF I KNEW WHERE YOU WERE…" Bella voice was stressed, high strung. I felt the pang of guilt again. I needed to tell them where we were. They must think we were safe, it didn't seem they were worried about our safety, right?

"Listen, when you turn on the phone again leave it on for at least five minutes. We can track you, and don't think I won't find a way to even if you don't leave it on…" Jasper's voice again, not calm but not frantic either. He was planning, he would find us or at the very least he would try. I knew they didn't think we were still in Hanover anymore.

"Jake please…" Rosalie's voice cracked, very unlike the blonde to show emotion. Again the guilt was in my throat. Delete. Skip.

"Jake how long you going to be gone?" Seth sounded tired, I wondered if maybe he was doing rounds for the Cullens looking for me? I hadn't thought to try to communicate with him. I made a mental note to talk to him the next time I was in wolf form which might be later today at the rate we weren't finding food. We were walking into town now, surely looking a bit strange. I might fit in to this town with my dark skin and long black hair, but Nessie was white and glowing with her bronze hair sticking out more than a needle in a haystack. Well, delete.

"We're very worried…" Esme's voice, I could guess the rest. Skip. Delete.

"She is testing us, try to convince her this is a bad idea…" Carlisle's voice came softly into my ear, again stress apparent. Delete. Before I could skip to the next one, the phone rang in my hand. Bella, great we had skipped from the calm collected parent to the frantic one. There was no way I couldn't answer it, so I pressed the accept button.

"Bells?" I croaked.

"This is the stupidest thing you have ever done Jacob Black, and I might find the highest cliff in Hanover to push you off of!" Bella snarled at me. Yes, Bella was more than a little mad.

"Might you for a second believe this isn't about me?" I responded. She was quiet and then it wasn't her voice.

"It was her idea of course." Edward replied to me. I didn't say anything and he knew the truth without me confirming it.

"Where are you Jake?" He demanded the answer. His tone suggested it was almost a challenge for me to not tell him.

"Don't you know by now? It seemed Jasper was trying to track us." I responded.

"We think you are somewhere in South America…" Edward didn't finish his thought to me though as Nessie had taken the phone from me and pointed sweetly to a little shack that seemed to be selling food near the road's edge. She shoved some money into my hands and I found myself confused as to when the girl had time to exchange currency. I walked into the establishment and my mouth watered from the smells and I forgot my predicament outside of being hungry.

I coughed to get attention from the younger boy standing near the grill. I had begun to notice youth more often lately, I don't know if it was the daunting idea of being alive for centuries that made a person notice that being 15 should be enjoyed. Anyway, the boy looked up at me and smiled and said some string of words that I didn't recognize. I should have taken a Spanish class, a thought to late.

"Comida…" I remembered the word for food! That was amazing, though really I just asked for food. I didn't really order anything, not that I could name any of the food I stared at in English. Well there were some potatoes, and chicken and meat but they all seemed to be mixed together on the grill. The boy looked confused at me and I knew I would have to try again.

"No Hablo Espanol. Comida?" I questioned this time holding up some of the money I crumpled up in my hand. The boy laughed.

"Chicken?" He asked calmly. I nodded.

"You speak English?" I asked.

"A little." He shrugged and grabbed a plate. He dumped some grilled chicken on it. Then pointed at a few other things and nodded, thinking anything that could fill the air with such wonderful smells had to be good. I handed him money and he handed me the plate, I sat down nearby and devoured every bit of food. Nessie sat down next to me at one point, slipping my phone back into my pocket. I noticed that it had been turned back off, great. Can't wait to hear what the rents had to say.

"You almost done, I think we should keep heading south before it gets dark again. You know we want to find a good spot to sleep, we are heading into the bigger rainforest." Nessie was commenting as she pulled out her map. I ignored her and kept eating for a second, she didn't need my attention right now. I heard her speaking in Spanish to the boy, again strings of words that I couldn't understand but by her animated nature and the boy's scared tone I assumed she was asking about the rainforest maybe trying to figure out where our vampire friends might be.

Vampire Friends? What had my life turned into? Now I had vampire family, a half vampire girl friend and vampire friends. My great grandfather would be so proud of me. I should be protecting people from vampires well the Cullens were better at protecting people than even I was but the others. The others, it was their nature, it was how they survived and it was all so complicated. I finished and looked towards Nessie.

"What did Ed say?" I asked. Her bright smile fell a bit.

"Daddy is angry with me." She stated as she stood up.

"Is that what he said?" I laughed, because I was sure it wasn't.

"He spent a lot of time trying to bully me into telling him where I was." She shrugged. "And then mommy tried to guilt me into it."

I shook my head as I was getting the feeling that my girl hadn't fallen prey to either tactic.

"You didn't tell them?" I sighed.

"No. I told them that I was an adult and they would see me when I was ready to come back. They shouldn't worry about me." She flipped her hair at me as she led me into another rainforest this one bigger and scarier than the one before. Not that I was scared, well not really, but in that moment the breath was knocked out of me. Better yet, we were at the water's edge to a wide, murky looking river, that we had to cross before entering the rainforest. It was beautiful, every shade of green that I thought Crayola made up in the crayon boxes really did exist and all in one place. The Amazon Basin was endless in either direction; the view of it was daunting and seeing the canopy of the rainforest sent shivers up my spine.

"Are we going to swim across?" I demanded that was going to end any further cell phone use. This was a bad idea, how had I not convinced her that this was a bad idea yet?

"No, we're going to take one of those boats." Nessie pointed to a little canoe looking thing. Ok, well at least we weren't going to swim. I've gone crazy, I just calmed down about how bad of an idea this was because of how we were getting across a large river to the dooming looking surely deathly jungle. Stay calm Jake, man you can do this. Look at the girl, Nessie, a whole six years old and not scared of this whatsoever. Be a man, I mumbled to myself. In all fairness, Nessie was pretty fearless, maybe it was something about her youth and you know general immortality. Maybe I should take a moment to remind her that I was not quite as invincible as she is? Would that make my reckless beauty think twice? It might scare her, but worse I felt it might lead her to making reckless dangerous things without me and I would prefer she not shut out her entire band of protectors. She was already so busy trying to prove her strength and independence to her family, that I couldn't even stand the thought that she might become distant to me for my own safety. No I wouldn't remind her right now that I could easily die in the depths of the rainforest, while she would live unscathed. Well I wasn't sure how hurt she could get but Nahuel, the half vampire that had saved her years ago had been born and lived here so it couldn't be that dangerous to half vampires. Right?

These thoughts kept turning in my head as we ran across soft mounds of dirt, webs of tree trunks, and patches of wet moss. My eyes watered from objects flying into them and a dulling pain that seemed to linger in my body as things snapped into my arms and legs. My lungs weren't that happy with me either, the air heavy and hard to intake at such a fast pace. In short, those first few hours were not something enjoyable and I wasn't strolling along one of the world's natural wonders smelling the exotic plants. Ferris would have been so disappointed, granted he never had to run with a half vampire and he didn't have a few hundred years to live. I wasn't sure if I had that long either, but here was for hoping that imprinting thing wasn't a joke after all.

We came to a halt at night fall, at least I thought it was nightfall it was hard to tell what time of day it was under the protective branches of the trees above us. That's when it happened the moment was instant, but I was no longer in between two large trees in the middle of the Amazons. There was nothing around me, it seemed that I was falling but I had no idea from where. Had I been pushed? What was happening? Where was I? Then the moment of panic set in, not because I was falling but because I had no idea where Nessie had suddenly gone.

"RENESMEE?" I shouted her name, aware that my voice suddenly sounded as panicked as all the voice mails I had been listening to. My heart had stopped beating and I wildly trashed looking for her.

"Jake?" Her voice came out like a whisper. A terrified whispered from somewhere around me, I would find her! I had no idea where she was or how I could hear her. But I knew she had to be near because I could hear her and if I was falling, she had to be near.

"Nessie!" I shouted again, hoping she would dare speak louder. Come on precious, be louder for once, let me follow your voice.

"Nessie?" A different voice, one that I didn't immediately recognize was around me. Then I wasn't falling, I was back here in the rainforest between the two trees and Nessie was sitting on the ground about ten paces from me. Without another thought I went to her in a leap, scooping her up in my arms protectively. I stroked her hair carefully and whispered in her ear.

"Its all right, it was nothing." I sighed. It took her a second to get over the shock, her fright was nothing small and then the awkward voice came again.

"Nessie?" The voice questioned again. "Is that my dearest friend? My child! How you've grown!"

My neck snapped to attention, prying my eyes away from my beloved's face. I looked up to see them, three of them standing only inches away from us. I knew them at once, I had seen them almost seven years ago but you don't forget Vampires or even people that look like they do. They were the wildest looking vampires I had seen, still to date, with their darker skins and strange clothing. We had found them, the Amazon nomads that had come to her rescue years ago.

Zafrina was still the mouthpiece to their little trio, flanked on either side by two equally exotic looking women. Kachiri and Senna were quiet but in their eyes they also seemed happy to see Nessie, it was almost as if I wasn't standing there as well.

"Zafrina!" Nessie jumped out of my arms, letting one hand squeeze one of my own hands before running into the wild woman's arms. I fought my instincts not to pull her back into my arms, keep her away from the long dark arms that were now holding her. Strange the contrast between the small, well-kept frame of Nessie still in her jeans and a pretty t-shirt being swung up in the dark arms of Zafrina in her animal skinned attired.

"Where are your young mother and your delightful father?" Zafrina looked around, surprised not to see them. I choked back a bit of laugh, like a vampire like Zafrina hadn't already surmised that they weren't with us, she would have of course seen them.

"They are actually off the coast, at Esme's Island. They let me come with Jacob!" Nessie motioned towards me.

"Ah yes the shape shifter, of course. Pleased to see you again." Zafrina smiled her oddly perfect grin towards me. Something in her expression made me think she was surprised to see me again, I wondered why?

"Well child! Look at you, such a grown up. Beauty, she has her father's hair and her mother's face. Look at her, and your visions?" Zafrina asked. Nessie slipped her hand around Zafrina's arm. I stood patiently afar, leaning against a tree just watching. I knew better than to trust my instinct of fear, these women would never hurt Nessie. I have no idea what Nessie showed her but I didn't really think about it. I watched her, as Zafrina cradled her in her arms as if my girl was still an infant. In comparison to Zafrina, Nessie would forever be like an infant. Kachiri and Senna caressed Nessie on either side, petting her hair and rubbing her back as if she really were a baby. It was amazing how this girl could inspire so much love in others, so much need to protect her. I shook my head, no wonder she was a terror that thought she should always get her way.

"We will catch up later, look at you perfectly tired out. I remember little one you sleep." Kachiri commented to Zafrina more than to Nessie. Perfect, this was going to go over well with my independent girl. They were going to be like her family, attending to her every movement and desire and caring for her like the baby they remembered. She didn't protest though, as Zafrina cradle her in her arms and Senna and Kachiri weaved around and made a hammock appear almost out of thin air. Zafrina placed her in the hammock, that was large enough to fit both of us but I made no attempt to move closer yet. It was odd, I watched Nessie being dropped into a jungle made cradle. It was true in this moment I watched the young woman I had come to know in the last year, revert back to infanthood. It was like she was really just that six year old, tiny in the arms of the wild giant vampire.

"There is enough room for your Jacob." Zafrina almost cooed to her. Strange, why was Nessie so calm about this. Wasn't this what she had been running from her family for? Had I misread her, was she running from something else? As my thoughts pounded in my head my body realized how tired it was and I felt Senna, I think, pushing me towards the hammock. One of them went to lift me into it, but I shook them off, I would not be taken care of by Amazon Vampires. I jumped in with Nessie, and she curled into my shoulder keeping her arms bent and close to her chin like she had when she was a baby. I don't remember much past that last infantile moment, because I had no ability to stay awake anymore.

My dreams were unnerving that night, I could hear Alice's warning and I watched Nessie hunt. I watched her hunt and prey on the people around these rainforests, I saw the blood turn her eyes crimson and I stood afar. I watched in those dreams that night, as human and as wolf but either way just watched. I couldn't stop her and I wouldn't stop her from doing anything she wanted. I awoke startled so many different times that night, the heavy sticky air around me disorienting before I felt Nessie in my arms. It was a long night, under the brilliant stars that burned green over the leaves of the canopy. I could hear one of the three vampires were always close by and sometimes I felt the hammock rock and I rolled my eyes at the attention that was lost on Nessie. Morning came soon enough, after what was forever to me, and I jumped up gladly. I held my arms out to Nessie that yawned and fell into my arms without much thought.

"Awake then little ones." Zafrina's broken English came amused from behind us. Nessie smiled brightly and nodded, I could feel she wasn't going to be speaking much.

"Good we travel then." Kachiri stated simply.

"Run with us?" Zafrina asked. Nessie nodded and took my hand. We went running for a while, a blur of shades of greens and some browns. We ran for a while, stopping after a bit when my stomach growled loud enough for them all to hear with their absurdly good vampire ears.

"The shape shifter is hungry." Senna sighed. I had a name, was it really that difficult to remember Jacob? I mean I know it wasn't some Amazon but you know two syllables, easy enough to say. Shape shifter was two whole words and so many more syllables.

"Jake, and yeah I could use some food." I groaned.

"You should hunt." Zafrina nodded. My eyes darted, almost as theirs did normally, from the three of them and to Nessie quickly a few times. Zafrina smiled down at me.

"We will care for her." Her words were like song lyrics, unnaturally so. I hesitated when Nessie pranced to me and in her kiss transferred thoughts to me. Zafrina had protected her when she was a baby and loved her then and I had nothing to worry about in her visions. I was not as convinced and I wanted to protest that I had been there too, but it was as if she had anticipated that. She kissed me lightly on the cheek, reminding me she knew I had been there too and that I loved her more than the others but that this was why she had come. I nodded and slipped out of my clothing, without shame.

"You will hold my clothing. Not go to far, I will stay close to you at a distance." I instructed and she laughed and nodded. The three vampires watched as I transformed into my wolf form and I took off in the direction that I could smell prey. I let the wolf become me for a little while, always smelling for Nessie to make sure that I didn't stray far. For even in my wolf form I was always looking for her, making sure she was near. Not even a different shape could hide my feelings for her, not even the instincts of the wolf could ignore my distinct need for her.

I hunted for a while, running after the vampires and occasionally lose the game I was after. It was hard to maintain my proximity to them, when they kept running off and to try to hunt as well. Not to mention, my wolf was use to the atmosphere of calm woods and not living dangers of a rainforest. I would run in and out of the path of the vampires, watching as I could see Nessie and Zafrina sharing visions like they had at the house in Forks so many years ago. It seemed like an entirely different lifetime that had all happened and I was amazed with myself at the clearness of my memories. I finally caught enough to satisfy the gnawing of my stomach and I ran towards the vampires that were close enough to me. Before I turned back to myself, I remembered the thought I had about Seth.

_Seth? _I questioned in my mind.

_Jake! Man! I had been waiting for you, didn't want to call for you. Not really know where you are, didn't want to scare you or nothing _Seth chattered in my mind. The kid really needed to learn when to talk and when not to talk.

_Look, I'm not going to be in shape much longer. I wanted to see how you were doing? _I questioned him.

_Man the Cullens are out of their mind looking for you. Jasper and Emmett left on a plane yesterday, I think to meet Bella and Edward. They didn't really know where to start looking for you…. Man that was something though; I am sure I've never seen Emmett break so many things. _Seth rambled a bit.

_What about the rest of them, have you spoken to Alice? They didn't bring her? _I wanted to know about Alice, I wanted to know about her vision and the message she had left me.

_They didn't take her, but she called them whenever she thinks she sees something. She has been worried sick, something about not being able to see clear. _Seth sounded confused.

_Call one of them. Tell them we've entered the Amazon Basin. Somewhere near the edge of Colombia though I think we're in Brazil. _I commanded.

_Sure man. Wow, Edward is going to kill you. _Seth laughed in my head.

_Love the support kid. I have to go, I'm losing them. _I didn't wait for a response but instead moved to shifting. When I was human again, I went to where I thought the vampires had been and I didn't find them. I ran around, straining to hear them but nothing was in the vast breathing jungle around me. I could hear the birds chirping and the plants rustling but nothing else. Where had they gone? They had been right here, panic settled in me again. Without much thought I turned into a wolf again and ran with all my heart, searching for her scent. I strained to hear any words, but in mind I heard Alice, and her frantic warning from days before over the phone.

I ran as fast as I could, I let the very instincts of the hunter take over in me. I would find her. They couldn't be far from me. I ran for a while, letting the animal take over I had no sense of time. I must have been like that for a while though because when I found them it was twilight and I was exhausted. I had almost forgotten I wasn't completely a wolf when I understood the words that were so close.

"Yes we will help you, teach you if you want small one. It's not hard. But you're family, they believe in feeding on animals. Do they wish you…" The words trailed off and were lost in my transformation. I knew what was going to happen, and I wasn't sure if I could stop it if I had wanted to. I ran to them, with my human legs, I ran for her.

I got to the edge of the rainforest, seeing the little torchlights of the village they had stumbled upon.

"Nessie!" I shouted. "No, Nessie!"

She looked back at me startled and then angry.

"Jake don't!" She commanded at me, but I didn't stop. I reached her and grabbed her arms and shook my head.

"You don't want to do this." I whispered. I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince her, or myself but it didn't really matter at that point.

"I do." She was determined.

"But Nessie, it's not what you should do. You are half human, you have a heart just like mine and theirs." I pointed at the village. The other three vampires did not interfere; I could sense that Zafrina might sense that this was a discussion that should be had.

"I do. I want to be the other half of me! Vampires drink human blood. Don't you think I'm grown enough to make this decision! My family just doesn't want me to have a rite of passage! Won't you let me grow! Do you want me to stay a baby forever!" She shouted at me and then it hit me. It was as if a stupid light bulb finally went on in my head, this was about that! This entire ridiculous trip to South America, this search for our Amazon friends was about her not wanting to be treated like a baby. More than that this was about Nessie having convinced herself that she needed to hunt, to be a complete vampire before she was fully grown.

"Renesmee." I sighed.

"Don't call me that!" She screamed at me. Her eyes were red with fury as she glared me with that look there was no doubt I had lost.

"Nessie." I croaked. "You don't want to do this."

"I do! Leave me alone Jacob Black." She spat me. I fought with myself, to leave her as she asked and to stay and keep her from making this mistake. She would think it was a mistake because she would be like Edward and the rest of her family members. She had been thought to believe in souls and goodness and she couldn't just ignore it. I won with myself and held her wrists in my hands, tightly holding her to me.

"Please?" I whispered. She twisted against me and then Zafrina let the darkness fall on me. But I thought that might happen and just held my girls wrists in my hands, not wanting to admit my defeat with her. But something pried me away from her and she was lost until the darkness was lifted. I pulled out the phone from my pocket hoping maybe I would get reception for a second. I pressed the button, letting it warm up and got the warning flash that my battery was low. I ignored it and called someone who might have answers for me.

"Alice?" I sighed into the phone.

"You lost her." Alice answered me.

"Alice?" I questioned.

"She has made up her mind." She replied.

"Do you know where we are?" I asked her.

"Yes, they are on their way to get you both." Alice responded.

"Will they?" I didn't finish the thought. The phone went dead before anything was answered. I shivered; yes my grandfather would be proud I was dating a bloodsucker. Not just dating, I was in love with a young woman that would become a killer tonight if she had her way. I tried to shake the image of her red eyes from my mind but they were persistent, as I became a wolf again. And as I followed their scents I knew that Nessie would have her blood before sunrise came.

I watched her that night from a distance, and I knew that some part of her could sense me near her but she never let on. At some time before the sun rose I saw her do it. A warrior guarding one of the villages scattering the edges of the rainforest was her prey. She pounced like any good predator, beautiful even as a killer. She was silent and perfect and it wasn't much different from when we had gone hunting. Except I knew that there was anger in her, passion, and mindless desire to quench her thirst in a way she had never done before. I watched her press her lips to his neck, and I felt a pang of jealous for a second at her being so near another but it didn't last. I was revolted as I watched her drain him, his color fade and his body go limp. I was horrified and yet fastinated by the scene because the young warriors face seemed happy and I couldn't think of why. I had never before watched a vampire kill a human, but I couldn't help feeling it wasn't normal for the person to look happy.

I watched in the morning sun as Nessie finished feeding. I waited for her face to show regret, for her face to become horrified but it didn't. Instead her eyes seemed redder, her body seemed fiercer and I was scared of her as I starred down. She didn't look like my Renesmee no instead she looked like a vampire. Sorry Grandpa, I sighed in my head because I just let that man die because I fell in love with a girl. Nessie looked angry, wild, almost fitting in with the Amazons. She was different and changed, what was I going to do? Follow her to the ends of the earth if I had to, but I would stay with her because monster or not I loved her. I just hoped that maybe Edward and Bella found us soon.


	4. Youth Deliverance

**Youth Deliverance **

Jasper Whitlock

_All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. – Art of War, Sun Tzu _

So many complicated mistakes, too many false starts, and so many wrong reactions had happened in the last five days. How could I have let this situation come to this point, how could I have lost this much ground? I should have trusted my instincts, what had possessed me to not follow my instincts?

"Jazz this isn't your fault." Edward groaned next to me. I snapped out of my self-criticism and shook my head slightly to my younger brother. Edward and Bella sat on the ground, crouched over the map of the Amazon Basin that I had brought with me. At least I hadn't lost all of my abilities because at least I had gathered everything we might need for our search party. Emmett sat on the bed channel surfing. Leave it to Emmett to be bored with the preparations if they didn't involve some kind of physical training. Renesmee had taken off with Jacob about five days ago and we had just arrived in Colombia at dusk this morning. Being unable to travel in the bright tropical sun that dwelled in the countries of the equator, we'd been forced indoors. Another miscalculation on my part, had we taken a little bit of an earlier flight it would arrived early enough that we would be able to get to the jungle's edge. Here we would have to waste another day, not traveling in the rainforest I was sure that my niece had long since left.

Why hadn't I stopped her from leaving that afternoon? I had felt the rebellion in her, the worry in Jake and I had known something was going to happen. I noticed Edward started to pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance. I could feel the raising irritation in him towards me, but I couldn't help it. If I had stopped her that moment, then maybe she wouldn't have been able to get away from us. If I had spoken my worry about the guilt that radiated from Jacob that evening maybe Emmett would have stopped them. I would have felt better if apart from that initial moment that caused our current events into existence I had made no mistakes. But I had. We didn't notice that she didn't come home that evening into well past midnight, only then calling dead phones, and discovering that Seth and Leah hadn't seen Jacob all day.

"Jasper." Edward groaned. I ignored him, and the now curious emotion coming from Bella. Emmett was the only one ignoring me still. Going back to my collapses of my analytical ability in the current situation, if at that moment when we couldn't find them I had realized they had left Hanover this might have been prevented. But we spent the first day exhausting all options available to Jake and Nessie within the state borders of New Jersey. Also calling them frantically though there was never an answer, I am sure we all left voicemails. At the end of that first day I was enlightened for a second and had called Forks, entertaining the idea that they might have traveled across the states.

"JASPER!" Edward slammed into me. I had been too busy to notice he had even moved and fell off my chair onto the floor with a loud thud.

"Edward?" Bella questioned.

"Just let him be." Emmett growled. "It's all his fault. Jasper has been beaten by a little girl and a dog."

I narrowed my eyes at Emmett not moving from my spot on the ground, while Bella innocently slapped his knee.

"Em, you shouldn't say that. Jasper knows it's not his fault." Bella was filled with worry over me, and annoyance at Emmett. Edward had gone back to his spot next to Bella, trying to concentrate on the map once again. I don't know why he was wasting his effort as a map meant little in terrain like the rainforest.

"It might." Edward gritted his teeth without looking at me. I stayed on the ground it wasn't any different than sitting. As I starred at the ceiling it was impossible not think of my faults with the mind of an army man it was what I was trained to do. I thought strategy and though dwelling on mistakes might bother you Edward, it is something I have to do. This might happen again, your daughter is not one for hiding in the shadows and not causing waves.

Edward chuckled at my thoughts and I sighed, sometimes I wish he really could turn it off.

"I wish I could too." Edward mumbled. Emmett groaned his impatience at not being able to read minds never dwindling, forever the envious one. Emmett was much like a two year old who didn't get the cool toy that the other kid had and forever held a grudge. I saw Edward grin but he was trying to keep his responses to a minimum to not aggravate Emmett anymore. I looked at my watch, four more hours until sunset according to the research I had done on sunsets this week in any of the cities of South America we might be caught in. My thoughts wandered again to that second day, spent on the phone with Edward trying to decipher where she might have gone trying to discover cause and motivate. I had missed the key motivation, I had forgotten those two days about her thirst and her newborn tendencies that had begun to shine. I hadn't thought about that as a motivation dismissing it as a condition she was experiencing not the emotion that was controlling her. A poor mistake by my part.

"We didn't know if she would ever be like a newborn." Edward sighed. He was ruffled by my thoughts and his vexing mood with the nervous habit of pinching his nose bridge had me thinking he was thinking about his mistakes of the last four days too. Why couldn't I? He rolled his eyes as he slide his arm around Bella who was hopeful as she dialed Nessie's number into her phone for the tenth time today in hopes that it was on this time. At dawn on that third day is when Edward had thought to check his credit card statement, where of course the child had charged her plane ticket. An amateur mistake that I should have thought she would make, stupidity had overcome me those three days. That's how we had discovered her whereabouts, but by that point we had to book a flight that would have us landing here at the equator when the sun had set. Edward and Bella taking a flight from Esme's island to meet with Emmett and myself. Our weakness being our inability to travel as easily as her in daylight where it was populated lead us to being in this hotel room, how much had I underestimated Nessie.

"What do you think she is doing?" Bella's voice cracked. Emmett and Edward looked questioning towards me, I had my theories that I had yet to share. I sat up to look at my family, sighing deeply. She had to be crazy with thirst by this point and I had started to believe on the plane, away from Edward that she might have sought out the Amazon vampires to teach her.

"Teach her what?" Edward solicited an answer from me. Teach her to be a vampire Ed, what do you think? Edward's eyes got big and Emmett groaned his attitude begrudging towards us both. Bella was frantic, feeling useless and absurdly left out.

"I believe Nessie might have been seeking to be taught the ways of vampires." I sighed.

"We're vampires." Bella responded immediately. She seemed calmer for a fraction of a second until the meaning of the thought sunk in and then panic.

"Edward?"

"She wants to feed on humans?" Emmett's confusion was overpowering the other emotions in the room. He didn't understand why Nessie would seek to defy everything our family had taught her.

"Yes. I think she does." I replied. We sat there debating our own thoughts for sometime, I dealt with working out my theories and concentrating on ignoring the raging emotions around me. It's amazing how the emotional climate of my family could vary so much, so quickly it was so unlike the vampires I had lived with for my first century of life. Emotions of fear, worry, care, optimism, contempt, and so much more from all three of my siblings, it was enough to drive a person mad. No for the first century I had known lust, hunger, desire, survival, passion, anger but little else from newborns and troops of vampires that lived only for instant gratification.

"What happens if she does…" Bella couldn't even bring herself to finish the question, the despair and disappointment in her was hard to handle. I was debating influencing her to be more hopeful but I hated changing people's true feelings. Particularly in a situation like this where the despair would affect results.

"Remember Bella once I told you once that a vampire taste human blood, its like frenzy." Edward carefully pulled Bella into his side, shielding her and protecting her. I smiled a bit, noting that since Edward had found Bella we had related on a whole new level. His desire to protect her stemming from the first few years of having to protect her fragile human body had intensified over the years and reminded me of my reactions to Alice. The two of them were much less physical about their relationship than Rosalie and Emmett tended to be, it was actually a bit intriguing to watch Bella still react to Edward as if he could drink her blood. I had studied them on occasion and decided it must have something to do with old habit and maybe just how their relationship had been established.

"What does the frenzy mean for her?" Emmett directed his question towards me again.

"I am not sure. Neither was Carlisle when we spoke of it." I chose my words carefully, not thinking anything about it. A practice I had picked up from Alice when she was trying to keep thoughts from Edward. Our youngest brother had a habitual ability to over react to certain thoughts, or become impulsively controlled by his emotions. It was one of his only weaknesses, really in terms of fighting a battle; emotions were poor partners in strategy and tactics.

"Why so vague in your thoughts Jasper?" Edward was suspicious of me, when he heard no elaboration.

"Uncertainty little brother, it is something that happens to me occasionally." I was going to explain what I thought it might mean when I had a new thought, direction. I stopped speaking and pulled out my phone, dialing without speaking and pressing it up to my ear.

"He's calling Seth." Edward provided to Emmett and Bella in the room. I nodded, the idea had come suddenly but it might be useful. If Nessie had been overtaken with her thirst, if she was on her destructive instant gratification path of a newborn Jacob might have reacted by staying in his wolf form.

"Jasper?" Seth sounded worried and exhausted. His voice was the muffled whisper of a sleeping person, but I had no time to dwell on what he might be doing.

"Seth, have you communicated with Jacob?" I asked.

"Not since yesterday. But he had just been hunting. That's when I called Alice to tell her that they were in the Amazon Basin, but she told you that already I thought. She seems worried man, is everything ok?" Seth yawned.

"I need you to see if you can contact him now, can you do that? Call me back as soon as you are back in human form?" I begged him, ignoring the question about our situation.

"Yeah of course, I don't think he would be hunting so soon again." Seth replied.

"I don't think he would be hunting, he might have had to shape shift. If it's true, he might explain. Remember call me back." I instructed, sometimes Seth had the problems of youth by being distracted and incapable of following directions. I hung up the phone, fighting the urge to call Alice and check on her. There was no need she was safe and fine at the house with Esme, Rosalie and Carlisle. If she saw something she would call, though she worried I would not be able to protect my thoughts from Edward. She hated to worry him, cause him any discourse with her visions always distraught by how inaccurate they could be when concerning Nessie. My Alice was use to being right, certain of what she saw and it was hard with the holes that Nessie had created in her world.

"Why would Jake be in wolf form if Nessie fed?" Emmett demanded.

"Well, Renesmee is a bit of a spoiled child…" I started and Bella wanted to protest but found herself unable to because of the truth in the statement. "She is use to a lifestyle of instant gratification. Little is denied to her, and few constrictions exist for her. She understands our lifestyle, and lives by the rules we have imposed for her health and growth but if she has succumb to the frenzy. If this is her moment of vampire development and this is her newborn spout, then this might become the trait that is most dominant. A newborn is driven only for their thirst for blood, their hunger being all that controls them and the only thing to curb them is fear. Nessie might lose her sense of self in the frenzy and become impossibly hard to please needing to constantly feed. She will become stronger and exist in anger. If she does take that first leap and feed, Jake will not be able to be near her. She won't remember she loves him, he will not register as food but possibly as an enemy. Moreover, Jacob loves Nessie but his instincts are to be a wolf around true vampires. He will not stand by in human form as his girlfriend feeds on human beings in front of him. I am not sure if he would try to stop her, she could kill him and Jacob knows that. But I feel that Jacob might not attack her in fear of hurting her, more than anything happening to her." Bella was overwhelming with her fear, anxiety and general panic and I couldn't take it so I sent a wave of calm into the room.

"Bella, it's natural. Nothing will happen to her. Jacob won't allow it to and this is nothing to worry about." I stated simply.

"We just want to return her home, this might be her choice Bella." Edward sighed into her hair.

"No. It can't be." Bella shook her head.

"It's not the time to worry about this. We should get her back home, where we can protect her properly even if it is her choice. We don't want her to get herself into trouble with our Italian friends. All they need is a reason." I commented. My phone barely rang when I answered.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Jake is in his wolf form, said to tell you that she has fed. A few times." Seth's voice was cold, disbelieving. He was disappointed and confused. Seth had known other vampires, he knew they drank blood and he wasn't a fan of the others but our family he loved. I don't believe it had ever crossed Seth's mind that we were like other vampires, that we could commit the crimes his ancestors had taught him to hate.

"Is Jake well?" I asked.

"He seems distracted, he didn't say he was hurt. Though I don't know if he would tell me." Seth responded. Before I could ask another question, "He said she seemed control by only wanting to feed. He worries about her control during the day, he suspects it's only the Amazons that are keeping her back when the sun is out. But she might break free of them soon. Jake thinks you should hurry. He wanted me to tell you it took them three days in the first jungle before the Basin." Seth's word were lifeless, I could sense his thoughts distant. In the corner of my eye I watched as Edward mumbled the news to Bella and Emmett. Emmett's jaw set carefully, he was determined but there was no regret or fear in his eyes. Edward was tormented, debating the state of his only daughter's soul. Bella was beside herself in emotion, and I sent her another calming wave to help her be able to think straight.

"Thanks Seth. Let me know if anything else?" I was instructing more than asking.

"Of course man." Seth replied in a yawn again. "Jake wanted me to check in every few hours."

"Yes." I hung up the phone without the courtesy of farewells. I starred at the room, three pairs of determined eyes. It was like looking at a newly formed army after a cause was announced, we would find Renesmee Cullen there was no doubt in my mind. The problem would be what would we do with her once we found her. But that was a problem to analyze during the battle, not now, now we had to decide our path.

"Finding my daughter is not a battle Jazz." Edward commented. I didn't really look at him though, as I was noticing the anticipation coming from Emmett. He stood near the window, peaking out from the curtain willing the sun to go down.

"You think she is a battle?" Bella was teetering between anger and distaste. I rolled my eyes before starring at her. She wasn't looking at me instead her eyes were fixated on the crescent scar that still existed on her arm. The scar had remained surprisingly after her transformation and often times it seemed she felt a connection to me because of our shared scars. But the anger and distaste were not directed at me, I was patient and paid attention to her moods more closely now. Her fingers played along the edges of her scar and as she moved it her emotions got stronger, that scar was her first real battle. I felt it now, she was reminiscent the scar a battle she felt she was a cause of still to this day. Her emotions flew into fright when she remembered the battle with the newborns and Victoria.

"Bella?" I questioned her feelings. Years of her being part of the family had taught her that she could hide from Edward, but Alice and I were not so easy deterred from her shield.

"But she isn't venomous." She sighed. Edward had moved away from the two of us and towards Emmett, my two brothers were prone to being impatient when situations were out of their control.

"That doesn't mean she can't feed on humans, you've always known that." I responded to her mood more than her words. The emotion in the air was thick with Bella, Edward and Emmett were much more concentrated on the whereabouts of the sun.

"Might she really be that out of control?" Bella was hopeful as she looked at me, searching for answers. I sighed. So emotional, I wasn't sure what would happen if we found her and we needed to truly hurt the child. Would Bella be able to do it? It might be better if we kept Bella at a distance when we found her, maybe with Jacob. My eyes wandered to make contact with Edward. He stiffly nodded at me but didn't turn or say anything.

"She might be." I responded finally to Bella. I didn't want to dwell with Bella anymore because the dwelling wasn't going to help us any. I jumped to my feet and looked out the window noticing the sun was beginning to go down.

"We should leave now, we won't be noticed in the dusk." Edward had turned to face me, Emmett responsively turning as well to leave. Bella sat on the ground still engulfed in her thoughts on morality and battles. You help her Edward. I thought to him and then started speaking out loud again.

"Three days, that is twice what it should take us to the Amazon Basin. We can travel day and night in the jungle. We won't be noticed, very few people spend time in the jungle and our senses will make sure we are not seen. We have to be discreet." I glared at Emmett, he laughed at me.

"I might be useful, thinking like a newborn and all…"Emmett enjoyed taunting everyone far too much.

"It might be when we get to the newborn. As for when we're traveling in the jungle, we want to make sure we don't scare any locals into a hunt for mythical creatures. You know how they can be a bit more superstitious down here than back home." I stared at Emmett, who nodded conceding.

"Are you going to leave yet?" Emmett demanded, his eye darting towards the window again. I could tell the light the room was dwindling and knew it was the perfect time to leave.

"We'll run straight to the edge of the jungle, make sure we know what direction we're heading and then run straight until we reach the basin." I directed our little band.

"Don't get distracted Emmett." Edward sighed. I have no idea what Emmett might be thinking, but he was a bit overly excited. I shook my head and moved towards the door as I gave the rest of the instructions.

"Edward and I will lead? Emmett and Bella make sure you keep up. Follow their scents. They might still be lingering in the jungle. I don't know how much we will be able to track them still, but if not we're heading due southeast." We walked normally, or at human speed, out of the hotel and out of the city. Once we reached the cities edge, we took off at a speed unseen by human eyes.

The jungles of South America are an unfamiliar place, even though I had run through them before. As my second time to them in my 175 years of life, I knew that there was no place like it. I had fought in the wet wilderness of Forks in the Olympic Peninsula; I had waged war in the southern deserts of Texas and Northern regions of Mexico but nothing like this. As I ran, my eyes observed all that I could take in from the beauty of the rainforest. There was water everywhere, dewdrops trickling down every tree trunk, every leave, down all the moss-covered stones. It was amazing how many shades of green existed in this one place, and then the other vibrate colors that stood out against the vivid greens. Aside from the beauty, everything was alive around us and I was on high alert. Heartbeats of predators, rustling of bugs, swaying of flowers and the constant fluttering of birds wings. I made a mental note to possibly research the rainforest when we arrived back in Hanover. I was currently in a sociology class about the development of a war culture in society and as I ran in the rainforest I realized the truth of that statement. Here in this place where even flowers had developed into predators to survive, as I saw a planet digest a bug. At least that's what I believe to have happened, no time to dwell but it was an interesting concept and might make a great paper comparing people in violent areas to the development of the rainforest.

"Think of the hunt!" Emmett shouted at us, Edward was farther ahead than I was but I heard him laugh back. No one stopped the running. We were determined and no matter how many objects could distract us we could not be stopped. Maybe one day, Emmett and Edward and I could come back here spend a few days hunting. Our running shifted directions only occasionally as Edward caught the scent of Nessie or Jacob. It took us only hours to reach the end of that first jungle. I had underestimated our speed.

"Jasper, could you for a second not blame yourself for something." Edward groaned. "It's exasperating." We stopped to decide our new direction.

"You would think you would be use to that feeling Ed, it's not like you don't do the same thing." Emmett slammed his hand onto Edward's back. Edward stumbled a bit and glared at Emmett, but Bella laughed.

"It's true, you two are quite similar on that point." Bella smiled at me, and I couldn't help but smile back. Bella's moods were always so contagious.

"Where do you think?" I asked Edward. We need to get out of here soon by the looks of the light was creeping into the night air.

"Should we call Seth before we head back in?" Bella squeaked. Emmett was bouncing around on the balls of his feet, waiting for more running.

"Em call Seth, see if he knows anything else?" I asked. Emmett smiled and pulled out his phone, thumbing in his phone book for Seth.

"You all need to enjoy this, we're in the rainforest. We'll find the kids." Emmett pushed the phone up to his ear and waited for Seth to answer. I ignored him as I looked at Edward and Bella. Bella was swaying a bit, standing at Edward's right side holding his hand. She was alert, a tense mood but I couldn't focus on her as I looked towards the new larger rainforest.

"We might as well just head in, we might be able to pick up their scent. It was still lingering in those, and they are still in here according to Seth." Edward nodded towards Emmett. He had just hung up the phone and ruffled up my hair.

"We going or what Jasper?" Emmett was a big brute, the oaf tried to be the older brother constantly forgetting that him and I were the same age, physically anyway. In truth I was about 70 years older than Emmett, I would have been an old man when Emmett was born had I still be human.

"He's bigger than you though." Edward laughed at me.

"Boys?" Bella stamped her foot a little, reminding me of Renesmee and making her point.

"Yes, let's go." I stated and we took off at a run plunging into the new web of trees, moss and wilderness. No wonder there was so much warfare in this part of the world, these jungles were perfect for constant attack. It was like there was no time in the rainforest, the sunlight was unreadable and even though I knew it was daylight outside of the trees it didn't seem to affect us. I noticed there was no glittering; the usual glint that shone off our marble skin was not present within the confines of the high branching trees. Emmett and Bella were in awe of our surroundings neither had ever seen this country or its beauty. Edward had run down here before, when he had been hiding from Bella a few years back. I wandered suddenly what had driven him down here of all places.

"I figured I would have to stay indoors all the time." Edward whispered to me, he was running pretty close to me at this point. Yes, indoors to be miserable. I had been down here in search of what might save Nessie before maybe there was some connection with Renesmee and the Southern United States. In a gust of air, I found her scent and from Edward's tension I knew he had too. We ran for a considerable amount of time, around trees, under trees, and in Emmett's case through some trees. Then Bella screeched a high-pitched bell like scream, it still caught me off guard how she didn't sound like her human self. She had been the first human I had ever had a relationship with before becoming a vampire, it was hard to relate her two selves. Edward and I stopped, Emmett slammed into me, the loud crashing noise sending the world around us into frenzy.

"Damn it Emmett." I hissed at him, he lifted me with his bear arms in a single scoop and smiled apologetically at me.

"Bella?" Edward called to her as she had stopped a few paces behind us. She was searching and ready to pounce when she crouched and sprang away from us. Edward reacted first, sprinting after her and Emmett and I followed suit. As we ran I realized the scent, Jacob as a wolf. Of course Bella would recognize him easily, she had spent the most amount of time with Jacob as a wolf. The two were still rather linked as friends, people, family and it was natural for her to find his scent over the three of us. We seemed to be getting closer; the smell of wet dog was prominent in the air. I smiled thinking of how much Rosalie hated that smell, she would whine for days when Jacob came in wet because the smell would linger in the house. Then we all seemed to slow as a group, a familiar heartbeat was near us and Edward was cheerfully pleased to have discovered Jacob.

"Jake?" Bella coaxed, still crouching a few feet in front of us. Absurdly out of place, a brownish red wolf the size of a horse came out from behind a tree trunk that was the size of Emmett's torso.

"Don't scold me about this young man." Edward gritted his teeth. I laughed, we were all much older than Jacob but in terms of physical age Jacob was almost 10 years older than Edward at this point.

"Come on Jake, don't just talk to Edward that's no fun at all." Emmett pleaded. Jacob nodded his wolf head and went back behind his tree. Edward was taking off his shirt and threw it behind the tree. Poor Jacob was embarrassed over his lack of clothes predicament. He came out from behind the tree, his slick black hair pointing in every direction because of the moisture in the air and his dark cheeks slightly blushed. Jacob had torn up Edward's shirt a bit, trying to create some kind of shorts. Jake should never go into fashion is what I decided at that moment.

"Where is she?" I asked getting to the point, also attempting to make Jake forget how awkward he was.

"A bit a ways down that way." He pointed. "She hasn't slept in two days it's strange. What is happening to her?" Jacob was exhausted all his other emotions were overshadowed by his physical tiredness.

"She hasn't slept, but she needs to sleep." Bella looked at Edward and I confused.

"Its true, her body needs sleep." I frowned, Carlisle and I hadn't discussed in detail what might happen to her human half when her vampire half emerged. But she couldn't ignore it. It wasn't possible and just then my phone rang. It was a good thing we spent a fortune on our plans, because our reception even out in the rainforest was pretty amazing.

"Alice?" I answered. "What did you see?"

"She will fall asleep in two hours, and that is when you should grab her. Carlisle seems to think that there might be a possibility that when she awakes she will have remembered herself."

"Do we succeed in taking her asleep?" I asked.

"I have booked your tickets for tomorrow morning. It leaves before the sun comes up, you will be in the air all night. And with six of you, it will be the whole first class section so you can maintain it dark enough to not be noticed." Alice had seen it all. No betting against my girl.

"Until tomorrow then." I closed the phone.

"We will get you clothes before we get on the plane." Edward was laughing at Jacob.

"How many times has she fed?" Bella was clutching Jacob's arm rather strongly. I listened as I scanned the area around us, we would need to move soon so that we could position ourselves correctly to be able to grab Nessie when she fell asleep. Edward would talk to the Amazons, because Bella was still scared of them. Emmett would grab Nessie holding her tight because if she woke she might fight strongly.

"Six times." Jacob responded dully.

"Six?" My head snapped. Six times in less than two days, that was more than enough. That was almost too much, she might be falling asleep because she has overfed and that's natural in humans. As a newborn she would be almost drunk with fullness, unable to see or think straight. But she would be strong and she might not wake herself with that much human blood.

"That's a lot." Edward nodded towards Jacob and myself.

"I think I've had six people my whole life." Emmett commented, counting on his fingers thinking back to his transgressions. I had fed on much more than six, sometimes even within the same time span as Nessie had.

"Well what an accomplishment Emmett!" Bella snapped. Fury was apparent in her as she felt Emmett was attacking her baby. Motherhood was a strange mixture of emotions.

"He didn't mean anything by it Bells." Jacob combed her hair with his hand.

"Chill, Bella." Emmett nodded.

"Was she violent?" I asked. I knew Jacob had watched every kill she had made. He nodded a bit.

"She was cruel, no messing with them or anything. She likes young men, she creeps behind them and just sinks right into them…" He shuddered.

"They are strong, she is attracted to their strength." I responded.

"Did she seem to have remorse?" Edward asked. Jacob coughed and shook his head. Not saying a word but probably remembering the moments for Edward to be able to see for himself.

"We should go." I announced before letting Edward sulk into his thoughts. We prowled along the path that Jacob led us down. This wasn't an attack, I had to keep reminding myself because every instinct I had was against such a visible path. Every instinct I had was telling me that we should be creeping behind trees, that we should be quiet and well trained in the rescue mission. But this wasn't a mission, really anyway, and it wasn't an attack. My military mind was often times hard to turn off. When I heard a soft flutter heartbeat I knew we were near, and I could sense that the Amazons knew we were near. STOP. I said loudly in my mind to Edward. He held Bella and Jacob in place. I grabbed Emmett's arm. We stood there without motion, perfectly still. We can't let them know we are here before she falls asleep, by the sounds of her heart she should be very near shutting down. Edward understood and just held Bella who was frantic with desire to run to her daughter.

I forced an emotional way of peace and distraction to the Amazons, Nessie and Bella. We couldn't be detected before the time was right. Motionless Vampires and Shape shifter stood in the middle of the rainforest, waiting amongst the birds and the trees for one little half-breed girl to fall asleep. I received a text message, but I didn't need to read it to know what it said or who sent it.

_Edward you first. _I thought. He nodded and looked sternly at Jacob and Bella, funny how the same look for both of them sent them all the information they needed. Stay put until Jasper says so, I could read it myself. He sauntered into the trees and beyond where I knew the Amazons were with the slumbering Nessie.

"Zafrina!" I could hear Edward speaking to them. "Yes you see my daughter took it upon herself to sneak off with Jacob. Yes we found Jacob."

I heard him explain our situation and I nudged Bella, and Jacob.

"You grab Nessie, make sure you have a decent hold on her Emmett." I grumbled to Emmett as we walked into the clearing ahead of us.

"Ah but you will let the little one come back and see us? You will visit us?" Zafrina was stating in her broken English to Edward, smiling towards Bella.

"Once we let her out of the house again, of course we will." Edward laughed.

"You aren't mad, we let her drink?" Senna asked. Edward shook his head.

"No friends. Renesmee has made her own decisions. It is not your responsibility what my daughter did. Please forgive her if she was any trouble at all." Edward stated. I watched Emmett lift Nessie out of a leaf made hammock. The child was beautiful and she gleamed with the excitement of her hunts. Her bronze hair curled around Emmett's arms and the tips of it were drenched in dry blood. The smell of the blood was intoxicating being on her body everywhere. The inexperience of her youth was apparent in her appearance, her body dirty with the blood of each of her kills.

"We must go. We made arrangements to fly home. You understand my family is worried." Edward bowed slightly.

"You say hello to Alice?" Kachiri asked of me.

"But of course ma'am." I nodded. Emmett had Nessie secure, we were off through the rainforest again. Jacob had retransformed into wolf, being able to keep up with us better. Bella, Edward and I flanked Emmett. We let him run in the mist of us, in case trouble came towards us he would be able to have a moment to give Nessie to Jacob before joining us. I didn't suspect we would come face to face with much trouble, but we always had to be prepared.

Our run had less anticipation now but the air was thick with tension. Edward and Bella were disgusted with the state they had found Nessie in, and though neither would admit the smell of the blood was overpowering their senses. We would need to find a river to wash her off in, maybe a brook. I was sure I had heard one near where we were in the first jungle. Jacob was relieved we had found Nessie and we had her back in the safety of our protection even if her own parents might be displeased and possibly want to kill her. He would gladly face Edward and Bella any day compared to the wild Amazon Vampires and the threats of the rainforest. Emmett's emotions were the most surprising, he was relieved like the others but he was angry. It took me a second to realize he was angry with Nessie it was as if the emotion had just appeared. Emmett was disappointed in her but angry that she had taken off, while he and Rosalie were responsible for her. He was angry for how she had made Rose cry and panic. Emmett was experiencing some sort of parental rage while being overprotective over the child. This might be the reason that Vampires don't have children.

Renesmee was going to have a lot of explaining to do, but I feared her own emotions more than the others. She was relentlessly trashing in Emmett's arms and she seemed violent and disoriented in her dreams. I stayed focused on her emotions, more than the others careful of anger because it had become apparent that it was her trigger emotion. We kept at a steady quick pace for most of the day, entering the first forest by nightfall again. The rainforest at night was a dream for a surprise attack, but no one knew we were here. No one could attack us, we would know. I concentrated on so many things, I was grateful for my mind's abilities. I listened for the sounds of water, paid attention to Nessie's moods, and watched carefully for danger.

"We need to make sure to wash her off." I commented to make sure they were all aware of the water noises. No one disagreed while I looked back at my sleeping niece in Emmett's arms again. Her lips were redder than usual, stained with the blood and her bronze hair tainted with dirt and blood held together with the twigs and leaves. Her pale face was streaked with tracks of sweat and of dirt. When I heard water we all stopped.

"I will take her." Bella held out her arms for Nessie from Emmett. Emmett, Edward and myself shook our heads.

"No Emmett will hold her." Edward responded.

"But…" Bella started.

"No, he is stronger and it is safer. Newborns can be dangerous Bella." I was firm in my words and Bella might have looked annoyed with me but she wasn't going to fight. She walked away with Emmett. We stood waiting, no need for all of us to walk to the bubbling brook. At least I thought it might be a brook, it sounded like one.

"I think it is." Edward nodded. Jacob sat in-between the both of us.

"She should be fine." I responded to Jake's concern for Nessie.

"We don't know." Edward responded to some unspoken fear.

"I can handle newborns Jacob. Don't worry, she will grow out of it." I reassured him.

"That is what Jasper was trained to do at one point Jacob." Edward sighed. I looked down at Jake who was starring at my arms. I could feel him trying to see the scars that glinted on my skin.

"They are there, I will show them to you under better light when we get home." I smiled down at him. Home, it still was pleasant thinking about having a home, a family. Even though I had been with my home and family for over fifty years, it still gave me a comfortable tranquil feeling. I had such a wealth of happiness around me constantly with my family, I had found something more to live for than the fight and the bloodlust. Bella came gliding back towards us, loving devotion shinning on her face as Emmett carried a cleaner Nessie back into view. We were about three hours away from the edge of the city, where we would have to try not to attract attention in the city streets at night.

"Do we have time to hunt?" Emmett asked. I suddenly noticed the dryness in my throat. Ah yes we should hunt, before getting on a plane full of people.

"We really should hunt." Edward agreed. I stood calculating for a few seconds.

"Let us run closer to the edge, but we can take turns. Let Emmett go first with Bella, I'll carry Nessie. Edward and I will keep running with Jacob, when you are both done you will find us towards the edge of the jungle. Then we'll trade." I offered the plan up, Edward wasn't sure we should hunt at all. I could feel his objection to leaving Nessie with Emmett and Bella.

"Go on then," I said to Emmett as I took hold of Nessie. I took her in my arms, like a slumbering infant the same way that Emmett had held her. She nestled her head into my chest and curled her knees into my stomach a bit making herself comfortable in the new arms. This is how the child had slept those first few weeks of life when she had no bed but slept in the arms of the family. Emmett and Bella took off, though I could feel the apprehension falling off of Bella as well as she exchange a look with Edward.

"I can wait to feed until we get home." Edward commented to me as we ran at a slower pace.

"I won't." I responded back. I knew Edward would know that I was speaking truth. He would hunt with me, because I needed to and because he knew I felt he should. My family was rather overprotective of my weakness. Edward had been less so since we had all ganged up on him about Bella when they first meet.

"I know my eyes are dark," Edward snapped at Jacob. See you should feed too, I thought to him. He gave me a death stare. I just smiled back. We had been running for almost two days at this point though, and we would need our strength to deal with Nessie if she awoke strong and thirsty still. He nodded in agreement but didn't seem like he enjoyed the idea anymore than he had before. Edward was a bit of a martyr always had been. Emmett came back first and Edward took off without so much as a word, into the jungle. I sighed, he would find something to hunt and be near Bella. Emmett was exhilarated from his hunt, as usual. He picked up Nessie again, and I handed her over grateful that my hands weren't useless. I didn't like being left defenseless. Bella came back in the same instant, her eyes the honey color of the bananas I had noticed a while back.

"Edward is around that way." She pointed, and I nodded and took off. Letting my senses take over, find food. Something that would keep me strong, something that was close. I had closed my eyes, concentrating. Movement around me but no it was just the rustling of leaves. I sensed passion, emotion from Edward not from anything I could drink. He had found a large cat, his favorite, maybe that would put him a better mood. Focus Jasper, I told myself as I took a deep breath reaching into my instincts. To my right there were a few small creatures, nothing that would satisfy my thirst enough even if I did have all of them. Nothing behind me, except for a few plants and insects but nothing I could hunt. Then I felt it, its movements changed the drift of the air every so carefully it would have been hard to notice. Its heavy body slithering made a subtle noise, hard to capture above the chirping birds. Lastly the smell, its miraculous how my sense of smell was another set of eyes for me. I could smell the sweet blood of another predator, the strength in its body and energy of its muscles was luring. I waited though, patient for it to be unprepared for my attack not that I feared it could overpower me. No, hunting was more like an art these days than just a means to satisfaction.

As if my preparation and my attack happened in the same moment, simultaneously with each other, I was feeding on a large snake. My hands grasped around its smooth skin that contracted with fight, my teeth sank into the thickest part of the body. The great predator of the rainforest had no catch against me, as its body didn't even react to coiling around me before I had drained half its blood. I felt my strength return to me, odd how I hadn't noticed I was so drained myself.

"Jasper." My head snapped, snarling someone was trying to take away my prey. When my eyes focused again, I felt the anxious emotion around me and I realized where I was again.

"Done?" Edward's eyes were amused with me. I licked off the last bit of blood from my lips and jumped down from the high branch, the snake followed suit landing with a thud behind me.

"Snakes suit you. Big ones like that anyway." Edward commented to me, a smirk on his face.

"At least I don't like kittens." I taunted as I took off in a sprint. Edward ran after me, soon overtaking me in speed. The rest of our travels were uneventful, except for the moment where Bella and I broke into a shop to find Nessie and Jacob clothing. Bella left money on the counter, I wrote a quick note as she had yet to learn Spanish. We picked up the nearest pieces in their sizes, for quick grabs we put together what Alice might have said splendid outfits.

Bella dressed Nessie in her half conscience state before we entered the airport just in time to catch our flight. It took a bit of convincing, Emmett and I having to sweet talk the air flight attendant that our niece had been so nervous to fly that she had taken too many sleep pills before we left the house. It a marvel what our smiles and some general chivalry can do for a cause, I winked at Jacob while Edward told him maybe he should acquire some of our manners. Our seating was a plan, with Nessie seating on the inside near the window in the middle aisle. Emmett would sit next to her being the one of us with the most strength to ensure she stayed where we put her. Jacob and I sat in front of them, mine being the seat directly in front of her, while Edward sat directly behind her with Bella. I felt her sleep drifting and knew she would wake on the plane it was not likely she would remain asleep for the whole flight or even most of it.

I called Alice to let them know we were leaving on time and everything had gone according to plan. Not that Alice wasn't already informed, but it was always good to double check. Alice informed me that it would be overcast when we arrived in Hanover, and my Audi and Rosalie's mustang were still in the garage so we would be able to drive home. We had succeeded in our mission to retrieve the youngest member of our family, probably from self-destruction but it was only the beginning of the battle. I wondered if Edward realized the problem we were facing with Renesmee, she might very well reject our way of life. There was a possibility she might be able to ignore everything we couldn't. Edward was tormented by the thoughts of his prey. I was plagued by their emotions. Carlisle had his morality his steadfast in the thirst, Esme her compassion for life, Emmett his respect for his family, and Rosalie, well I wasn't sure what kept Rose from feeding on humans. Maybe she didn't want to mess up her appearance.

I heard Edward snicker behind me. Listening to thoughts is eavesdropping. I thought to him, but there was no response. But what would hold Renesmee back, what would make it her choice and not what was forced upon her. That was the key, the key to any army or unit or family. It was about the individual choice that is what made us so much stronger as a coven. We made our choices and the harder choices at that, Robert Frost could have been inspired by Carlisle.

"You seem tense Jasper?" Jacob sighed as he leaned back in his seat, trying to relax while being on alert for Nessie. I laughed slightly. I was the one who felt emotions not the other way around. I nodded.

"Your thinking about what happens when she wakes up?" Jacob nodded at me. Surprising how perceptive Jacob really was, I was beginning to think if he ever could become a vampire he would have a talent much like Edward's. It might be true what Freud said girls do fall for their fathers. I could sense the amusement coming from Edward behind me, though no out loud laughter this time. I nodded again.

"Do you think she will like the taste of blood too much?" Jacob was petrified of the outcome of this outburst. I stared at him intently, his dark features so unlike the rest of us. His signature warm smile creeping onto his face, that smile that I had once underestimated as a sign of his youthful optimism, made me smile back him. Jacob Black was blessed with many talents, one being his carefree ways of life. He loved Renesmee, even if it was the cause of some strange tribe myth that turned out to be true but the emotion existed in his every movement and reaction.

"Love." I whispered, realizing that is what held us all back. Besides our torment being the initial reason for some of our choices, it was love that maintained it. When consumed with bloodlust and self-satisfaction there was no room for love, could Nessie walk away from Jacob. Would he allow it, what would that mean for someone like him that had imprinted on the last creature in the world he thought he would ever love.

"Love?" Jacob's voice was sluggish but still sparked with questions.

"You might be what delivers her from her youth, you might be what makes her choice." I sighed. Jacob nodded.

"She doesn't listen to me." His voice mumbled.

"She might." I shrugged. "It's surprising where love can lead you." I sighed looking back at my niece, who was pretending to be asleep still but I knew she heard my words. She was awake, apologetically sending messages to Emmett in visions that he thought were dreams. Yes victory would come from love, strangely different than many of the other fights I had but befitting to the child of Bella and Edward. It was always about love when it came down to those two. Truly it was like that for all of us.

I had followed Alice blindly, into the world that I held dearly too now. I could only guess that Nessie would make the same choice.


	5. Consequences, Kid, Consequences

**5. Consequences, Kid, Consequences**

Emmett

_He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in hostile environment where only the strong survive. – Call of the Wild, Jack London _

As I shifted gears, I could hear the engine almost cough. Maybe it was time to get a new Jeep? I had owned the thing for over a decade now, longer than I had owned most cars in the last 70 some years. But man I loved this car, the power, the size, and the ability to drive over almost anything. Maybe Rose could work on it again, make it live a few more years. Or maybe I would check out what other Jeeps had come out in the last few years, I could talk to Jasper and Edward about it but both of them liked speed over strength. Don't get me wrong, I like speed but I like power more and could Jasper's new little Audi really drive over rough terrain without bottoming out?

"You're really thinking about your car?" Edward sighed next to me. I looked over at him, his hands were almost ripping into the seat cover, and his eyes were focused on the car in front of us as if his life depended on it.

"It almost does." He threw his words at me. Edward was angry, shock. Actually it had taken him long enough, the entire plane ride he almost seemed at ease though it was hard to tell sometimes. When Nessie had woken up on the plane, she slipped her left hand onto my arm and her right hand in-between the chairs onto Jasper's arm, taking no time at all to beg the two of us into protecting her from Edward. He had heard it as well and no sooner did a loud growl escape his lips than she pushed the thoughts of exposure to Jasper. Jasper, obviously, felt inclined to help her and us all by calming Edward against his will.

"You'll get to be angry with her all you want soon enough little brother." I laughed at him, looking into my rear view mirror to meet the worried eyes of a sick looking Jacob.

"If you and Jasper hadn't insisted that I ride in this car, I swear that child." Edward was grumbling.

"You could yell at Jacob." I teased. I saw Jake tense up in the backseat. The poor kid had been through a lot these last few days. I had been furious with him, until that moment when we found them in the jungle. Alone and terrified, even in his wolf form, of having lost Nessie it was a moment to pity the guy. I couldn't imagine losing Rosalie now, or ever since the moment I had met her we had been together.

"Oh Jacob and I will be speaking. But for now, don't you even think about helping her escape when we get back to the garage. She is plotting ways to escape dealing with all of us, and Jacob if you know what is good for you and her you won't help her." Edward growled. Jacob shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"Is it really a good idea to yell at her?" Jacob asked. Edward's eyes flashed dangerously to Jacob. This is why I was thinking about my Jeep, because it was easier than listening to you be angry about everything. I thought to Edward, who just growled a response to me as I pulled into our house's garage. I parked next to Jasper, who seemed focus on controlling the moods of someone in the car. My siblings with their freaky traits, I was sure that their "extra" abilities are what made my brothers so high strung and Alice so odd. Bella slide out of the car appearing almost out of thin air on the passenger side looking serene. Jasper stood at full attention holding the door open for Nessie to crawl out from the back. I had moved around to the passenger side of my jeep, standing next to Jacob near and Edward watching Nessie struggle for a second to get out of the Audi.

"Emmett, just pick her up." Edward's jaw was set as stone. Really, you know how to get worked up about something man? The murderous glare he sent me made me chuckle a bit, the kid was going to drive himself mad over this girl. So Edward, as Rose would say.

"Sure Bro." I nodded. I wasn't going to let the kid get away, I care about her as much as you do.

"Can't I just grab her?" Jacob asked weary knowing the answer would be no, but taking a shot anyway.

"Just let me take care of it Jacob, you look like a puppy could beat you up." I laughed as I jumped out of the Jeep.

"Or a family of vampires." Jacob replied gloomy of the looming fight. As my pretty little niece came tumbling out of the car, Jasper caught her and helped her to her feet. As she regain her balance she scanned the garage for her motorcycle, focusing on it with her eyes for a few seconds before looking for Jacob. It was a tense moment in the garage with everyone knowing the Nessie was going to try to run off again. The child should have known that there was no way she was getting anywhere out of our sight now, or anytime in the near future. I caught Nessie quickly and easily enough when she ran towards Jacob, poor plan on her part. I swung her small body over my shoulder in one swoop and started walking.

"UNCLE EMMETT PUT ME DOWN." She screeched into my ear. God she has good lungs.

"Renesmee do not scream. Emmett will put you down once we are in the house, and you can just forget all those thoughts of running off." Edward was trying his hardest to remain calm. I could feel Jacob's heat on my back, looking down a bit I noticed that the guy was holding Nessie's hand.

"You have avoided this moment long enough." Bella sighed. Jasper looked up at me, he was shaking his head. I wasn't sure at who was it me? Did he think I wasn't focused enough on the situation at hand? Jasper doesn't think I focus well but I had grabbed her hadn't I?

"He's not thinking about you." Edward sighed to me. I smiled down at him. No matter how much it felt like a procession to an execution. As we walked into the house, I could feel Rosalie near me as her scent filled the air and I could feel her annoyed tension anywhere. This was going to be an interesting fight, I wondered where Rose's anger would lead me this time. Before I had left for South America for Jasper, Rosalie had been uncharacteristically mad at Nessie and wanted to teach the child a lesson. But it had been a few days that my Rose had to stew and settle and maybe just the sight of the baby well and healthy would send her into her usual desire to protect the child from Edward. As I shot a side-glance to Edward I knew he wasn't going to back down from this fight.

I had been mad at Nessie too that night when we had discovered she had run off with Jacob. Mad I had lost her after I had promised Bella and Edward that I would keep her safe. Mad because she had made Rosalie frantic with worry, my Rose loved Nessie as if the baby was her own. It was like I had lost my own daughter, she had run away and I hadn't noticed that it was happening. I had lost a game with a child, she had outsmarted me and I had basically handed her the keys to her get away car. Upsetting to say the least, but I didn't have to mad at her. Edward was going to be mad enough for all of us.

But as for her slip up, I can't say that I hadn't been waiting for the possibility. Just because Bella was a freak, saint like and everything like Carlisle, it wasn't a fool proof guarantee that Nessie was going to be void of all temptation. Quite the opposite actually, I think that Edward was going to be abundant in that part of her, rebellion and all, I mean you and Jasper are tied or something for how many people you've killed. Edward didn't appreciate my thoughts, not that I had anymore time to really think about.

"Edward!" Esme hurried towards her favorite son arms wide open. I was never jealous of how motherly Esme tended to be towards Edward, it was just something to tease the momma's boy about really. So many things I could tease Edward about.

"She'd already had six young warriors, very quickly even for a newborn." Jasper was already mumbling a quick update before the fight exploded with Carlisle. Little Alice was dancing below me towards Bella, holding out her hands but I didn't pay much attention to that.

"Jacob." I winked at him and bounced Nessie off my shoulder into Jacob's open willing arms. I laughed at the annoyed look on Nessie's face as she tumbled into Jacob's chest and he wrapped his dark arms around her body. My goddess, Rosalie stood perfectly framed by a faint light coming from the other room like an angel. I could tell she was trying to decide what direction to go in. Her body trembling with anger, an emotion I was well versed in with her so I could recognize it. Her feet were twitching, dancing almost underneath her gorgeously long legs with her desire to run to Nessie and pet her. My eyes traveled her body taking in the sexy way the fabric of her jeans clung to her perfectly shaped lower body. My smile got wider as I followed the stitching of her corset top, that perfected her tight upper body and my eyes lit up as I fell to her face. That's where her last desire was burning in her eyes she had no sight for anything in the room but me. She had missed me.

When I looked at her and grin is when she threw herself at me, I picked her up and spun her around for a second laughing. I planted a kiss on her before putting her down, having fulfilled her first desire I knew she would want to move on to the petting of Nessie. I stood behind her, placing my hands comfortably on her well-defined waist.

"Princess are you well?" Rose cooed to the baby. Nessie as struggling against Jacob but he had taken Edward seriously and wasn't letting her go anywhere. Rosalie bent over her, just under Jacob's chin almost completely ignoring him. She laced her fingers into Nessie's bronze ringlets, pushing strands of her hair out of her face. Rosalie was lovingly humming to the child as I realized that this couldn't last much longer I looked around the rest of the room.

Jacob looked pale, sickly, and like the guy should really eat something. I rolled my eyes at Carlisle and Jasper still barely moving their lips they were speaking so quickly. Edward was fuming he had almost turned a different color. I wondered what was keeping the kid from just bursting. Bella was standing with her shoulders hunched and her body almost melting into Edward's side, tense I assumed. I noticed that Alice and Esme were missing from the room, was that why Edward hadn't started yelling yet? He can't possibly be waiting to calm down, that wasn't going to happen man. If that's what you are waiting for.

"Rosalie don't crowd her." Bella sighed finally. Rosalie ignored Bella of course, and kept at her cooing. I shrugged apologizing on Rose's behalf to my little sister.

"Rosalie. That is enough." Edward's words were venomous. Rosalie's body stiffen, she twitched but did not waiver in her attentions to our niece. I saw a smug look of satisfaction on Nessie's face that bothered me.

"Enough. Rosalie. Jacob put her down." Edward's voice was louder, commanding and daring anyone to cross him. Maybe he didn't like his daughter's smug face that I had seen either. Jacob carefully dropped Nessie down onto her feet, the girl was about a foot shorter than him, a little bit shorter than Rosalie around 5'5 maybe. Her ringlets fell to down below her waist and her brilliant red lips were pressed into a thin line. She slipped her hand into Rosalie's and I knew that she was sharing some desire or thought with Rose, that would only cause problems.

"Jacob." Esme had reappeared with a tray of things, behind us near one of the coffee tables. Of course, our mother was making sure she was taking care of everyone. Besides Edward I was beginning to think she had grown particularly fond of Jacob, he let her mother him more than Jasper and I ever would. She had made him a sandwich and placed some of his favorite snacks that we kept stocked in the kitchen now on a tray. Also I recognized a tin little bottle from a few days ago, I assumed it was for Nessie but Esme wouldn't suggest the child drink before Edward suggested it.

"Renesmee would you care to explain to me why you decided to run off to South America? We had agreed that you and Jacob would go to Forks this week, what made you flagrantly disregard our plan?" Edward was trying very hard to remain calm. You're failing little brother. I shook my head, his eyes were dark and his shoulders tense.

"Because I could." Renesmee tossed her ringlets as she lifted her chin upwards. Perfect disrespectful and rebellious was definitely going to make this better.

"Damn it Renesmee." Edward growled. "You shouldn't have run off to the Amazons by yourself and you know it!" As his voice got louder and his eyes flickered anger, Rosalie hissed at him and rolled on her heels to fall into a crouch.

"I didn't go alone, I went with Jacob." Renesmee was taunting him now. I feel my niece might not know what she was getting herself into Edward was not going to be calm on our account.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous what you did was? Your disregard for your own safety is beyond me Renesmee but to put Jacob in danger! We were all besides ourselves with worry, something could have happened to you!" Edward was no longer even pretending to be calm. His voice was bouncing off the walls, his eyes burned and Bella had moved away from him letting go of his hand which meant there was no return from his anger now. Fights with words were slightly boring to me, though I wasn't sure this fight was only going to be words.

"Rosalie, Edward is not going to hurt her get up." Carlisle sighed. Rose didn't stand up though, or stop snarling at Edward. I looked straight at Jasper because he was going to have to help with her mood. Jasper shook his head lightly but I knew he understood.

"You were mad too Rose, the child ran away from you." Bella commented.

"I AM NOT A CHILD!" Nessie screamed the words, her fury vibrating after her.

"But you are." Carlisle sighed.

"NO! NO! NO!" She stamped her foot. Jacob had gotten up and was hovering behind her.

"The foot stomping really helps your cause babe." He whispered, though I don't know why he bothered we could all hear him. Rosalie had gracefully stood back up and was leaning into my side, her face set in an almost unattractive way. I say almost because Rosalie was always beautiful.

"I am not a child." Nessie gritted her teeth.

"You are a child, and you will be for a few more years still." Carlisle added, patient and steady in his matter of a fact tone.

"And to act so irresponsibly! To run away from your family, to betray our trust, and to endanger yourself." Edward was ranting. "You are my child and you will do as your told!" Edward commanded. Before Nessie could fight the command Jasper started to speak.

"You forget who has always been after you Nessie, the Volturi wait only for another reason to come after us. After you. You put yourself in danger because of exposure." He commented. "You put us all in danger."

"I don't need your help!" She screeched.

"Because you did so well by yourself? Jacob half starved and you almost exposes us all by feeding during the day." I sighed sarcastically. She really didn't know when she was beat, why couldn't the kid just take her lumps, as they were due.

" I don't have to do what you say anymore! I am a vampire, and I am older than you'll ever be!" She screamed at Edward and Bella. Edward laughed, a hollow joyless sound and I grimaced at the anger in the kid.

"I'm 126, how old are you?" Edward mocked.

"I don't need you anymore!" She shouted at him. It was almost as if the rest of us weren't in the room. Really it wasn't our fight, we wanted her safe and well at home too but she was after all Edward and Bella's responsibility. Though I would use all my force to make sure the kid stayed put where we wanted her, close to Rose and her parents.

"We just chased you through the amazons to bring you home safe!" I laughed.

"I didn't need you! I was fine on my own." She flung her hair around as she searched for someone to be on her side.

"Yes so fine, that Jacob was half delirious following you make sure you didn't get hurt. That you didn't expose yourself. You forget darling how much danger you are in, constantly." Bella sighed.

"We have never fought anything alone." Jasper added.

"All of you talk about dangers! About having to take care of me. I faced no dangers, and I took care of myself! None of you know anything!" She shouted at us, all of us surrounding her.

"We know quite a bit, actually." Rosalie sighed, standing next to me I could tell she was upset at having to side with Edward against Nessie. I was glad that I didn't have to be on the wrong side of the argument this time. Nessie stamped her foot again, she looked a bit like Rosalie when she was mad. Strange how they weren't actually related in blood but sometimes acted so much like each other.

"I am a vampire now, I will not be treated like a child." She hollered.

"You've always been a vampire, half of one." Carlisle's mouth was set, he was growing tired of this fight. At that moment Edward had closed his eyes, shut them tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

"Much good that did you. AND you will be treated as the child you are, the chastised child you are." Edward kept pace with the fight ignoring Carlisle's statement. "You darling are confined to the house, until we decided what to do with you."

"Confined?" She questioned her eyes burning with flecks of red and a passionate anger I was unfamiliar with.

"Grounded precious." Bella added. That was the moment the kid snapped, completely lost it. It was like before a few days back outside when I had found her wrestling with Carlisle and Jasper in the front yard. Her eyes were burning the red crimson of fresh blood and she was thrashing frantically. Jasper had soared almost towards Nessie, but Rosalie had stepped in his line of attack. He slammed into Rosalie instead and I reacted by pushing Nessie into the ground and trying to smack Rose out of the way. She was just out of my reach though.

"Come on Babe." I groaned at Rosalie. "Let Jasper help!"

Edward was next to me in seconds, having sprinted past Jacob and Bella holding onto Nessie's shoulder. His hands were pressed into her shoulders and started shaking her, he had knocked Jacob into the couch. More like broken the couch with Jacob, Esme was going to cry over that antique later.

"Edward, carefully." Esme's voice escaped in a whisper.

"Renesmee. Stop this. Jasper?" Edward pleaded.

"I'm trying to calm her down." Jasper gritted his teeth. He had moved around Rosalie, as she had unwillingly moved out of the way. It was taking the three of us to hold her down her strength was incomparable made stronger by the fresh human blood she had consumed. But I knew as her hands were grasping mine that she only desired more blood currently. It was all she was thinking about her thoughts that she transferred to me where about the one heartbeat she heard that she didn't understand.

"This is enough!" Edward was shouting over the kicking of Nessie's feet that was causing crashing noises to echo throughout the room.

"She's not herself Edward." Bella whispered. Bella and Esme were pecking like mother hens over Jacob, who sat on the floor deflated that his girlfriend's father had just thrown him across a room. I winked at him when he looked at me trying to tell the guy we had everything under control. She had stopped thrashing and I had let go of her torso that I had been holding down. As soon as I lifted my hands she pushed herself up and away from Jasper and Edward.

"No!" Edward shouted. In a flash the kid had thrown herself at Jacob, this time though Bella stepped in her line of attack. It might have been the only time I ever saw anything go towards Bella that Edward hadn't stopped. He was a little less than pleased standing frozen watching Nessie claw at Bella. Jasper was heading towards Nessie I could totally beat him to her. In one loud crashing step I was over the kid with my arms pulling themselves over her in a bear hold of some sort. Jasper was just a half second behind me, but I beat him to it. I grinned and winked down at him, he shook his head seemingly annoyed.

"She wasn't going to hurt me Bells." Jacob mumbled as he leaned down to help her up. Edward was on her other side in seconds.

"I think she might have." Edward whispered these words his anger had evaporated. Jasper almost attached to my side, ready to pounce if I should let go of the fighting girl in my arms, nodded.

"No, Nessie would never heart me. Besides my blood doesn't appeal to her." Jacob looked horrified at Edward and then at Jasper.

"It's not your blood that is prompting her to attack. It's your heartbeat, she's confused." Edward sighed, closing his eyes again. The rage had drained out of his body. Rosalie and Alice I noticed were guarding the back door in case our dearest niece made a run for it. Carlisle and Esme stood near the other possible exits.

"She's a newborn, who doesn't quite understand." Jasper started.

"But she does understand, she's not really a newborn! And what about her own heartbeat? Nessie, listen." Jacob moved towards me and I swung Nessie away from him.

"Be careful Jake." Esme whispered from her post around the room. He persisted in his movement towards her, and I looked questioning to Edward who shrugged. I looked at Jasper for what I should do and Jasper's hands were twitching in case he needed to grab her too so I decided we were well enough prepared.

"Nessie." Jacob was just inches from her face now.

"Be careful, she might bite you." Jasper commented.

"She has before." Jacob shrugged. He smiled up brightly at Nessie. Her struggles lessen and she was very still in my arms. I noticed Jasper move away from me in that second and he grabbed the tiny bottle from the table.

"You won't hurt me." Jacob whispered to her, his hand coming up to her face carefully but lovingly. As his hand came up to her cheek she twisted her mouth around and snapped at him with her teeth, Jasper interceded. He maneuvered his hand in and pushed the bottle to her lips, draining its contents in moments. In seconds she was limp in my arms.

"She's asleep, let me take her." Rosalie was at my side now, her hair dancing along my arms.

"What if she wakes up…" I started but Rose glared at me. I rolled my eyes, fine you carry her. Rosalie placed her arms around the girl's knees and shoulders and cradled her carefully in her arms. Nessie was deep in slumber and I frowned at Jasper.

"She needed to feed before I could make her fall asleep. She wasn't going to accept it quite as willingly as I wanted her to." He shrugged. Rosalie was walking towards the stairs of the room with Nessie and Jacob was shadowing her until he got to Edward and Bella.

"No." Edward had placed his hand on Jacob's shoulder.

"But when she wakes up," Jacob started. Edward's jaw was set though.

"No. Bella and Rosalie will stay with her, you will stay down here. We should have Carlisle check you over make sure nothing is wrong. Esme will make you something to eat, you will stay down here." Edward didn't remove his hand from Jake's shoulder. If Rosalie was going to be staying with Nessie there went my plans for the afternoon.

"You still owe me a match on that new fighting game." I commented to Jacob, I needed something to entertain me and I doubted much that Jasper was going to be up to playing chess currently. And I never liked to play with Edward, cheater that he was, besides he was probably going to be busy with Carlisle and Jasper discussing theories.

"Bells?" Jacob croaked his last plead. Bella shook her head, as she glided near Rosalie.

"She might hurt you, and she would never forgive herself. Its better if you stay down here." Bella smiled apologetically and they disappeared up the stairs.

"Come on Jake. We can call Seth." I nudged him in the shoulder. Jake shrugged and gave Edward one last pathetic look. Esme had escaped into the kitchen and I could hear the sizzling of food, and the grumbling of Jake's stomach.

"Hungry much?" I questioned. Jacob shrugged.

"I guess." He starred over at Edward, Jasper and Carlisle who were sitting still whispering with each other. As I turned on the system, I loved video games not as much as actually fighting but I wasn't really allowed to fight anyone. The snow had melted, that had taken away the great snowball fights that we had been having. So I had turned to video games, at least until maybe we could find some bears.

"Jasper, Edward, can we go bear hunting this weekend?" I asked as I threw a remote at Jacob.

"Really Emmett?" Jasper rolled his eyes. Why did they all give me that look? Like I was crazy to remember it was bear season. I loved bear season. I shrugged.

"We will then?" I persisted.

"Yes, yes Emmett. What was that Alice?" Edward's eyes turned sharply on Alice. The little pixie was sitting on top of the broken couch, perched really, with her eerily look of seeing something no one else could. Jasper jumped from his spot and moved to her side, grabbing her elbow in his hand.

"What do you see Alice?" He asked.

All my siblings were freaky. I rolled my eyes.

"Nothing!" She frowned.

"But what was that, with Bella and me?" Edward had stood up now.

"You're upset. But you are always upset." Alice's shoulders shrugged. Jasper held both her elbows now, and Jacob was tense beside me.

"Focus Alice." Jasper said persuading her. Silence in the room, nothing happened.

"Come on Jacob." I growled. Annoyed at the silence, I was sure that Edward and Alice were having their own conversation without the rest of us. Jacob moved to play with me, but he was letting me win and this was no fun at all.

I went back to thinking about what kind of car I wanted. Jacob would go shopping with me the guy had more knowledge than any of my family members on cars. He would understand my want for power over speed, unlike Jasper and Edward. Something tall, with big wheels for sure and maybe open like my Jeep. I wanted my jeep, maybe something more updated. I could go look it up as I was sure that there were pictures and specifics available online, but that would involve reading. I liked to look at things and test drive things, looking up what the cars were like and reading about them was nothing compared to feeling their power under my hands. I wonder if maybe with a new Jeep I could beat Edward in a drag race, he could drive Bella's Ferrari it's not like she really drove the thing anywhere. I had watched a movie the other night with drag racing though the movie was pretty boring with no fighting and less action than I would have liked the idea struck me as a fun competition. I almost asked Edward if he would race me, but when I looked over to him I realized he might not even respond to my suggestion.

Yeah, the house was going to be an enjoyable place the next few days. So much trouble out of someone so little, so we let her kill a few people every so often what harm could that really have. If it kept peace between everyone and kept her safe, what was the harm?

"No Emmett." Edward growled.

I could talk to her about temptation, I wasn't like you or Jasper. Mine were actually mistakes. I suggested.

"Maybe that might be a good idea." Edward nodded.

"Could any of you just for a second remember that Edward is the only mind reader," Jacob let out a frustrated sighed. I laughed. That annoyed me too most of the time, unless I was the one talking to Edward and then it was just like having a real conversation.

"Emmett wants to buy a new car." Edward announced out loud. That wasn't what we had been talking about I frowned at him.

"What kind of car!" Alice squealed. Edward grinned at me before he turned back to Carlisle.

"I don't know. A jeep maybe." I responded.

"You already have a jeep." She whined. "Something different, get something different. We could get a Lamborghini, we haven't had one of those before." Alice was rambling.

"You guys haven't had one of them before?" Jacob sounded surprised.

"No, Ferraris are far better as performance cars. Lamborghini are all show, he would hate that car Alice." Edward commented.

"I could break a Lamborghini with one hand." I was bored with the idea of something that I had only thought of as a seat for the pretty runway models. Besides I don't think I could even fit inside one of those tiny sports cars that Edward and Alice drove.

"You could get a trophy truck, though not sure how much you could drive it around town without bringing more attention to yourself." Jacob laughed. A trophy truck, those were big and fast! I could pretty much run over Edward's stupid Volvo or Jasper's little Audi.

"I wouldn't think about it Emmett, we might take apart the car in the night." Edward laughed.

"I don't think we need to draw anymore attention to ourselves Emmett, so maybe not the best choice." Jasper agreed, probably sensing my enjoyment at thinking about their stupid little cars crushed.

"We could go check out the new Jeep unlimited Wranglers, much like the jeep you have now. We can test drive it tomorrow, maybe even find a place that might let us test drive a trophy truck." Jacob suggested, his eyes looking bright for a second.

"Don't give him ideas." Jasper sighed.

"If Emmett drives a trophy truck he will want one." Alice nodded.

"Do I get one?" I asked her.

"I don't know yet." She smiled knowingly and I was disappointed, that meant I didn't. Well a new Jeep Wrangler might be good enough, what color did I want? I kept thinking about the new car, as I heard the whispers from behind me about Jacob's health. About Nessie waking up again, about the right and wrong of the situation. Just live with the decisions, that's all I wanted to say to my family, but knowing it would get no where I thought about my car instead.


	6. Choice

**Choice**

Edward

_The praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we are, the pride that shines in our mother's eyes as she looks at us is about the most pathetic thing a man has to face, but he would be a devil altogether if it did not burn some sin out of him. – Little Minister, J.M Barrie _

I ran my fingertips thoughtlessly over the leather bound books, pacing at human speed around Carlisle's library. My father's office was dark and dreary as if my mood affected the atmosphere.

_Son. _Carlisle sighed in his mind to me. I looked over at my father, for all intensive purposes, as he leaned against the ledge of his office windows. His kind golden eyes were patient and tolerant of me. I looked away unable to focus on his look, I turned to the books again. I started to stare at the titles.

My eyes lingered on the ancient copy of _Romeo and Juliet_. Star-crossed lovers destined to died. There never was a story of more woe than that of Juliet and her Romeo. I scoffed. Did Romeo kill Juliet, take her soul, by having her give birth to a baby that might one day be a monster. A baby that might be a monster, the thought lingered in my mind. The beautiful baby with her perfect face, her golden hair and her mother's eyes how could she be a monster? My baby, my daughter, a creature of so much perfection that with one smile I had loved her more than I knew I could love anything. Yet, was she a monster? Had she been born with a soul? How had I allowed her to lose a soul, me that would protect her from the fires of dooms day.

"Edward." Carlisle was stern and my attention was back on him. I defiantly stared back at Carlisle. I was aware that I was being difficult, brooding.

"This is not your fault." He sighed. Not my fault? I wanted to scream, if I hadn't left with Bella. If I had paid attention to Jasper whenever he warned me that this might happen. If I hadn't given in to Bella those beautiful first nights on Esme's island so long ago it seemed a different lifetime. But then I wouldn't have Renesmee and no matter her current state I wanted her, I hadn't known until she existed but I had always wanted her. Renesmee was like Bella, I didn't know what I was missing until they appeared and now the very thought of living without them was unbearable. I would protect her and keep her as long as I could, but what was I suppose to do about this. What about her soul, what about her sense of morality?

"Where did I go wrong?" I whispered, throwing myself onto one of the leather chairs near me. Carlisle moved towards me and sat across from my limp body in his own chair.

_Always blaming yourself. _He shook his head.

"It's my fault." I responded dully.

"Edward speak your mind to me." Carlisle was patient but I could tell in his tone he would not support my sulking much longer. I looked at his face his perfectly formed calm young face with the old aura.

"I've always respected you Carlisle, as my father." I started hesitating.

"Mostly." Carlisle chuckled. "Like any seventeen year old you can be prone to melodramatic bouts of rebellion and disrespect."

_Don't look so pained about it Edward, it's to be expected. _He amended in his mind, as I saw my horror reflected in his mind. Like any seventeen year old, was this normal then? Should I not pay any attention to the fact that Nessie had just run away from my entire family, to a different country and lost her soul? Was that all part of her rebellion. But then again she wasn't really seventeen she was physically and mentally suppose to be older than seventeen.

"I'm so lost." I threw my head back onto the couch.

_I feel we missed some more conversation before you reached that point. _Carlisle mused in his mind. _Is this about you or about Nessie, or about Bella? _

"All of us." I responded.

_Which one more? _Carlisle pressed. _Are you upset because Nessie is being disrespectfully? Because honestly Edward she is a just a six year old at heart with the emotions of a raging teenager and the possible reactions of a newborn vampire. What do you expect? And if it's about Bella she seems to be taking this better than you are. And my son, if you are blaming yourself for this entire situation we've been over this a million times. I have half a mind to tell Bella that you are beating yourself about loving her again and let her deal with you. _

"It would upset her." I mumbled. Right, it would more than upset her. Bella was against my moody disposition when it came to moments of questioning if I had done right by her, if my selfish decisions had truly been the best choices. I doubt that I would have made any of those decisions different, with the exception of one, but even that one had brought Renesmee love and Jacob might be the key to saving her soul. But there was no doubt in my mind that I had been utterly selfish, a callous fool. Bella had saved my soul and I was convinced she had made me whole again so even if my leaving Bella was the only regrettable thing I did maybe it had its purpose.

"Edward. What is bothering you son?" Carlisle tried again.

"You've never told us what to do Carlisle, not really anyway. You have never forbid me from doing anything." I still wasn't looking at him.

_Where is he taking this. _Carlisle thought before responding to me.

"No, I have not. You are my son, but you are also an adult you can make your own choices. I support your good judgment." Carlisle said the words slowly; still trying in his mind to decipher what direction I would take the conversation.

"But I've had poor judgment several times." I pressed. I wanted to know how Carlisle dealt with my making poor decisions, how could he stand by and let me make decisions he didn't believe in.

"Yes, and I have supported you to a point every time. I know you will bring yourself back. When you decided against our diet, you found yourself coming back to us. I let you make that decision, even though it pained me. I was confident that someone as good as yourself would find yourself back in our home." Carlisle was demanding I look at him now, not out loud but in his mind. He hated having conversations without eye contact with me. I was harder to read without my eyes.

"But what if you didn't think I would come back, would you have stopped me?" I stared at him.

_What was I going to do to stop you? _Carlisle questioned in his mind. I shrugged, like I had the faintest idea what he would have done. I didn't know what I was doing and I was trying to stop my own child from doing something.

_You look so troubled. _Carlisle was studying my face and I saw my forehead rippled into worry and my eyes looking stormy in his mind.

"Renesmee is my daughter." I stated.

_Yes, no doubt. That temper of hers is undeniably yours. _Carlisle joked quietly.

"She is making the wrong decisions." I said the words out loud but immediately I wasn't sure I had spoken correctly. "Making decisions, I'm not sure I agree with." I amended.

_Ah. Parenting. _Carlisle looked annoyingly amused with me now. He placed his hand on my shoulder.

"You are my son. Everything I would have ever wanted in a son. Your Strength, your Goodness, the light that radiates from you. You have been my son for a very long time, but it is different for us Edward." Carlisle said the words slowly, thinking them over in his mind.

_You are those things. _He repeated. _Different because I did not actually raise you, you were already raised when I found you. _

"Your mother and your actual father raised you, they dealt with your rebellious bouts. I never came home to the window you broke, well not one that you broke on your own." Carlisle chuckled to himself, remembering a series of not just windows but a few couches and some tables that Emmett, Jasper and I might have tumbled into while playful fighting.

"But I didn't have to teach you right from wrong, when you've broken my windows you have known it was wrong. You have apologized and paid your dues. But I didn't watch you go to your first day of school. I didn't have to sternly lecture you or forbid you from doing things that you were too young to understand might do you harm." Carlisle smiled softly at me.

"But…" I started but he shook his head and held up his hand.

"I still lead you and guide you, because you were young when you joined me. Still so very young, but you have always been free to make your own choices because you know how." Carlisle finished.

"And with Renesmee? What should I do?" I groaned, letting my head fall to rest in my hands.

"Confine her to the grounds?" I could sense his mockery.

"Charlie grounded Bella for almost a year when she ran off to Italy to save me." I shrugged. That was where my idea originated from in the moment of anger the only parental rage I had connected in my mind had been Charlie and Bella.

"I think most of that had something to do with the motorcycle that Jacob had brought back." Carlisle laughed.

"But many of the humans, so many of them in the schools. I hear their thoughts, grounded for sneaking out. Grounded for breaking curfew, for pushing their siblings, for borrowing the car without permission. For failing a class." I mimicked the reasons I had heard for the last few decades in high school.

_You, Jasper, and Emmett would be grounded all the time for fighting with each other, if I had the mind of today's parents. _Carlisle smiled. I rolled my eyes.

"What would you suggest I do?" I asked desperate, because when I thought about it. What purpose did grounding Nessie have, she spent most of her time in the house anyway. I couldn't deny her Jacob, I didn't have the strength to do that to either of them.

"In my time, when a child disobeyed they were whipped." Carlisle stared at his wall of paintings, thinking back to centuries past. I saw flickering images of his own childhood, fragments of memories of his father beating him.

_Not that I think you would whip anyone, so very unlike you. Not to mention what good would it do, I'm not sure she would even feel it. _

"But that was very long ago. The concept of being grounded, is being denied what you like to do is it not?" Carlisle asked me.

I thought back to all the thoughts I had heard. What had grounded meant, with Bella she had not been allowed to leave the house. But she was still granted the use of most of the things in the house, but that wasn't normal. Grounded teenagers, children, they were not allowed phone use. They were not allowed to drive their cars, or watch television or do anything remotely entertaining.

"Yes. Something like that yes." I nodded.

"So maybe that is more the purpose, but we should discuss why you decided on this course of action." Carlisle suggested.

_What were you mad at, because you cannot punish her nature Edward. You of all of us should understand, that is more choice than something that can be forced. _

I shook my head. Was I mad that she had succumbed to the temptation? No, that was not what had made me ground her in the living room. It was her flagrant disrespect to me, to her family. I had been angry by her reaction to me, by her lack of understanding that stealing away was wrong.

"We can't trust her anymore." I suggested.

"You have never left us without telling us. You understand your actions have an impact on the rest of us." Carlisle nodded. Yes, that was it! How could he understand that was the problem?

"Should I be angry?" I asked, unsure of myself. Parenting was a first time for most of us, ground we had yet to understand much like it had been for me when I had finally figured out I was in love with Bella. Unknown emotions, unseen path, and I never knew how to react.

Carlisle laughed again and seemed to nod.

"You must understand something my son. Renesmee is actually still a child. You still have to raise her. All children need discipline in their life. You and Bella have been rather fortunate that the child has never truly done anything wrong, but this is that moment. You must ensure that she realize what she did wrong, how her actions affect us, and why she must think of others." Carlisle was looking me straight in the eye, ensuring I understood. I nodded slowly.

"Rosalie would do with that lesson." I laughed. Carlisle shook his head but was smiling too.

_Yes, as one of my sons would do with learning not to be so temperamental. _Carlisle looked pointedly at me, as I heard something crash and break underneath us, probably the companion chair to the couch I had broken with Jacob earlier.

_And if Emmett could learn to not be so reckless, and Jasper not so violent. Yes my children are not perfect. _Carlisle winked at me. I heard Esme screech at Jasper that he had fallen onto her favorite chair, then Emmett joke that I was the blame because I had broken the couch. Esme was not pleased, with either of them. By the sounds of it Jasper, Emmett and I would have to go hunting for antique furniture tomorrow.

_Can I see her yet! _Jacob was practically screaming at me. I stood quickly and went to leave the room.

"Thanks Carlisle." I mumbled.

"Edward." Carlisle had moved back to his desk, to do work but he added the thought before I walked out. _She is going to have to make a choice. _

I found Jacob, his massive dark body curled up near the doorway of the stairs leading up to Nessie's room. He must have been sitting there for a while because he was starting to fall asleep, the boy couldn't sit still for too long before he started snoring.

"Jake." I frowned.

"Come on, let me see her." He whined, half awake yawning. After our fight earlier, Jacob had eaten everything Esme had prepared. Then he had played with Emmett a few games of whatever fighting epic my brother was currently attached to before I had insisted that Carlisle examine him. When I had entered Carlisle's study, Jacob had been declared in perfect health and he had walked out with every intention to see Nessie but I had told him to wait. I leaned against the wall carefully, not wanting to break anything else today, sure that Esme could only take so many things breaking before she had our heads.

_I waited, I did as you said. Come on let me see her. _Jacob was saying to me, silently.

"Has she woken up?" I asked. He shrugged.

"Rosalie came down a little bit ago, went looking for food for her. Brought back a sandwich, apparently Bella is demanding she not be given anymore blood." Jacob looked up at me with his eyes pleading.

"She might be dangerous Jacob." I sighed, crossing my arms.

"She's always dangerous. Since when do you protect me bloodsucker?" He demanded of me. I smiled. He was frustrated with me indeed to be calling me bloodsucker.

"Do you think she's dangerous?" I asked him, changing directions of our conversations. He frowned, lifting his massive paw like hand to push back his long black hair from his face.

"Not to me." He responded the words careful, reserved.

_Maybe to others. _He added in his mind. And then I saw the images again, the ones from the depths of the Amazon that were like my own painful memories. Nessie danced to her victims with a passion that burned in her eyes, she skipped over them wrapping her legs around their waists. Very unladylike really, as she slipped her arms around their torso and then sank her teeth into the perfect indent of their necks. Jacob's memory focused on the unusually happy faces of her victims, on his jealously of her body wrapping herself around theirs. Each of those boys that she had drank from had a serene smile of joy on their faces as their bodies had lost all color and ability to live.

Then an altogether different memory flickered in Jacob's thoughts, a different vampire came into his mind. My Bella with her eyes the same passion burning as had in Nessie's eyes, she was attacking but mid-attack she stopped. She stopped, she stood back up from her crouch and she smiled that sheepish grin she had when caught in trouble. Jacob was making the connection of the differences in his mind, how Bella had resisted but Nessie had not.

_Why? _He asked me. I shrugged, sadly I did not know why.

"I don't know why. Bella had been prepared for her transformation." I stated for lack of a better word, Jacob still cringed at the idea but smiled up at me nodding for me to keep going.

"She had known. She had been human. She had understood our lifestyle. It had been her choice to join us, as we were. Bella never desired to take human life, actually she feared ever becoming that monster." I looked towards the stairs where Bella and Nessie lie, why couldn't Nessie have been passed her mother's compassion and not my monstrous desire for blood.

"So you will teach Nessie." Jacob stated. I looked down at him surprised.

"Teach?" I questioned.

"You prepared Bella, you made her understand. You taught Bells how to be a good vampire." Jacob nodded.

_Now teach your daughter. _Jacob repeated.

"Edward?" He questioned me.

"Yes?" I replied calmly. _It's a choice? _Jacob scanned through images, memories of not just Bella and Nessie but all of us. He had heard our stories and he knew our past. I nodded to his question.

_She will make her choice then. A choice. _He nodded more to himself before speaking aloud again.

"Don't you have class?" He added to me, looking down at his phone that flashed Seth's name across it.

"Don't you?" I raised my eyebrow at him. He grinned carelessly at me.

"Seth is going to take notes, no worries. Can I stay with her while you and Bella go to class?" He pleaded again.

_I haven't been able to hold her since before, in the rainforest. I want to make sure she knows I still love her. _Jacob relayed his thoughts, his fear that she didn't understand. I in took a large gulp of air and nodded.

"Send Bella down." I held out my hand to help Jacob up. His lips curled over his white teeth, into a goofy smile as he took my hand and I pulled him to his feet. He turned to the window, using the reflection of himself in the pane to pull back a few hairs that were out of place and admire himself.

"You aren't that good looking Jake." I teased.

"You're just jealous." He shot back at me, turning on his heel to go up the stairs.

"Take care of her?" I requested.

_Always Edward. Always. _His long legs disappeared from my view and at that moment Bella came floating down the stairs and comfortably into my arms. Her scent was around me like a blanket, I inhaled every bit of her as I wrapped my arms around her tightly. I could forget everything with her just in my arms, I had often forgotten everything because Bella was my life. She rolled up on her toes, searching for my lips and I conceded to her desire and kissed her.

_Get a room. _Alice stated to me, and I growled through my lips but pulled out of my kiss. Bella grasped my hand, as we both turned to face Alice.

"Are we going to class, I saw that we were. I also saw that Edward would let me drive today!" She chirped.

"Did you see when you would stop being so annoying?" I asked smiling at her. She made a face of thinking and then stuck her tongue out at me.

"No, nothing on that. But that is a lovely gift Bella is thinking about getting you for your birthday." Alice winked at me and started skipping away from us.

"Also Edward, I told Jasper already but just in case. You might want to try Hank's Antiques in Wentworth at least I think it's that one. Definitely in Wentworth, you will find something suitable to bring back to replace what you broke." Alice sang to me. Antique shopping was definitely what I loved to do with Emmett and Jasper on a Saturday morning. Walking past the through the living room to the garage, I caught my siblings in the middle of a fight.

"She seems fine." Rosalie broke the silence.

"She isn't fine Rosalie." Jasper sighed.

"I don't understand what is wrong with her." Rosalie spat back to Jasper. Jasper was leaning over some books, studying tactics used during the second French Revolution. It amazed me sometimes that Jasper still found wars to study, after over 100 years you would think he might run out or at least grow bored.

"She's a newborn." Jasper rolled his eyes exasperated of the explanation. It seemed he had been explaining the same thing for the entire time we had been upstairs. Emmett was mockingly repeating the fight that was unfolding in front of me in his head.

"We were all newborns Jasper." Rosalie fought back. " Nothing happened."

"Rosalie! We don't understand her as we understood us. Besides from what I understand you were rather preoccupied with yourself after your only kill, which you didn't drink from, to have been a threat to anything besides a mirror." Jasper mumbled his insult. I cracked a smile, so unlike Jasper to be unkind in his words to a woman. Rosalie brought up the worse in us sometimes.

"Jasper." Esme chastised quietly, it was a wonder he managed to look contrite at all before Rosalie screeched.

"What would you know, as if you have ever even looked in a mirror!"

_He's handsome enough to never have to look at a mirror. _Alice winked to Jasper, who was smiling brightly at her. They were creepy sometimes, how well they knew each other.

"Rosalie. Jasper. That is enough." Esme clapped her hands at them, like a mother with her unruly toddlers. Rosalie and Jasper really did look like twins as they both momentarily scowled at her, murderous thoughts of being treated like naughty children. I found their thoughts to be remarkably similar to my own daughter, except in theirs it was only a fraction of a second before they forgot to be angry and understood Esme's reason for chastising them.

Just because understanding ran in the thoughts of my overtly beautiful sister didn't mean she calmed herself well. Rosalie clenched her fists. She hated being told what to do. Emmett slipped his hand into hers, well that is what it appeared he did but I knew his hand had pried her fingers forcefully from her palm.

_Awesome Jasper and Rosalie fighting. Jasper would win. Rosalie will be unbearable for the next three days. Jasper could take pity on me. _Emmett sent a goofy smile to Jasper, who rolled his eyes.

_If only she could control her own moods, overbearing beauty queen. You would think she was some sort of Southern Belle, and for a Yankee that's an accomplishment. _Jasper sent a wave of calmness into the room, a particular favorite mood of his lately.

_So unlike Jasper to be rude, even with Rosalie pushing his buttons. He must have been stressed by his days away from Alice. _Esme was fretting over us, as usual. Bella pulled me away from the scene of domestic tranquility and I frowned at not being able to drive.

"What if…" I started.

"We play for it." Alice pulled out her keys.

"And you win?" I questioned, sometimes I thought Alice saw things the way she wanted them to be. She nodded at me and hopped into her little green mini coop. The ride to was quick and uneventful; Alice spent the whole time thinking about antique shops showing me visions of furniture she liked. Relief could not even begin to cover what I felt about Alice not being able to go with us on our shopping trip. Shopping with Alice was a once every decade event, poor Jasper was dragged around with her more often than that. Bella was silent to me at least her mind was, but her face showed me her thoughts as easily as others minds shouted to me. My fingers itched to smooth out the frown lines around her eyes, the deep V that had reformed between her eyes. I focused on how her eyes seem to be searching for something but she was looking at nothing in particular, I wondered what she might be thinking. Suddenly her eyes locked on mine.

_What are we going to do? _She asked me. I smiled. Yes, I had guessed that might be what she was struggling with. The way she was biting at her lip, she was indecisive and worried about asking my opinion. I smiled, the way that use to make her heart pace uncontrollably fast. She eased in my arms and smiled back at me.

_That's not an answer. _She sighed at me. I laughed weaving my fingers into her hair. So much of the last seven years, so much of our relationship had been consumed with what our next step was going to be I couldn't help feeling like our adventure was never ending.

"We'll come up with something." I whispered to her as I helped her out of the car, Alice was rolling her eyes at us. I winked at her.

"Not like you are any different with Jasper." Bella commented as she slipped her arm around Alice. The three of us were in the same class together tonight, so I took my place walking behind Alice and Bella as they whispered and giggled to each other. Clear as glass, a picture of Bella and Alice always friends. Alice was always right. I fell to listening to the thoughts around me, maybe something of these young adults experiences would help me with my parental dilemma.

A crowd of young men, mostly thinking about sex played football on a patch of grass. I scowled a bit there was no virtue in today's youth. I might be old fashioned but bedding a young college undergraduate hardly seemed the only way to be seen as successful.

Gossip. Names and faces that I didn't recognize from the gaggle of girls sitting by watching the football players. Thank goodness this university was not as small as Forks High School had been, I could pay less attention to the gossip.

_My father is going to kill me when he gets the credit card statement. But those shoes were so cute. Well there went my spending money for next month. _A flustered looking girl dressed rather sharply, an outfit Alice might even envy, walked past me. I snuck a look down to her shoes, designer brand and very pretty. I could smell the leather or as Bella would put it the expense in them. The shoes she was wearing currently were expensive enough to be out of the usual range of pocket money for a regular college student. It might be safe to assume that the young girl had a strong shopping overspending problem.

No spending money for the next month. The idea rang in my head as a novel concept was surfacing in my mind about appropriate reactions to actions. The girl that had walked past me had spent too much money so now she would not have money to spend this month. Her father would do this because it would teach her the value of the money. Yes it made perfect sense. Bella had run away without permission to Italy, she had gone after me to save me the cause of her almost destruction. She had been restricted to the house, restricted from seeing me as much as Charlie had been able to manage. It had made sense, but he had put her under house arrest because of the motorcycle that wasn't as correlated at the escape to Italy. But I remembered Charlie had not put that much thought into the punishment. Honestly it had been what was expected it was what was done to unruly teenagers, they were grounded. Their cars were taken away, their allowances were suspended, their phones were taken away and their lives outside of their immediate homes was cancelled for a few days or weeks as the case may be. It was the "popular" punishment, the norm, a restriction to modify behavior. But did it achieve anything? It made the young person think about their actions, yes that had been proven over the years of my listening to their thoughts. They were remorseful about their actions and often avoided landing themselves into trouble again quickly.

My thoughts had overtaken me momentarily as we had walked into our classroom. Class had started as I had harped on the proper responses to behavior. I noticed that we were discussing a new book in the children literature class today. Majoring in Literature was something I had done to please Bella but it had proven a vastly interesting subject material, something new and different from my usual college major.

"The key to understanding children's literature is understanding how the concepts of children have changed throughout the ages. When we studied Peter Pan by J.M Barrie we realized that Peter was the main child character. Pan was not older than a 10. While today's popularized child literature stars Harry Potter a child that ends his journey at 17. Today we recognize Potter as a child still, but when Pan existed a 17 year old was no longer a child. The importance in the idea is how their experiences vary, there is still growth and development and understanding of the world around them. It is still a snapshot of growing up, no matter that Pan was fairly young in our eyes and Potter is on the edge of adulthood." The professor babbled on about the age differences of the different eras, the difference in the journey and the ideals that were being conveyed to youth through the stories themselves. As I carelessly wrote notes on the lecture, I let my mind wandered again on not only my own thoughts but others as well.

Childhood was youth.

What did childhood mean? Not taking into account actual ages, what was the meaning and purpose of childhood?

I noticed my mind was echoing the questions that the professor was posing to the class, the mental voices around me also echoing the words. Repeating the question to themselves searching for the answers.

"The lost of innocence?" A girl dressed in Victoria Secret sweats sounded doubtful shouted.

"Possibly." The professor nodded but his thoughts revealed he was less than impressed by the canned answer.

"To learn and experience in a safe environment, to develop as an individual that can live in society properly." Bella's voice was near me and had spoke out loud.

_Always right on the nose that Bella Cullen is, pity she married so young. _The professor nodded slowly. Who was he to judge what a pity it was that Bella married young, why was it a pity? I noticed I was angered by his thoughts, I silently snarled and Bella looked at me reproachful.

Not mad at you. I wrote on her notes, she frowned but ignored me. To learn and to experience was the key that would lead a young person to be able to make decisions for themselves. I flickered to images of cubs, mountain lion cubs. The cubs' mother nurtured them until they were matured to a physical point. More importantly she taught them how to hunt, when they could hunt on their own was the moment that most cubs wandered away from their mothers protective shelter.

Was Renesmee grown? Was she ready to leave our shelter? Was six years under the protective wing of her vampire family truly enough to teach her enough for her to be a good individual for the rest of her existence? As memories surfaced of her killing the warriors, of her foot stamping, of her lack of argumentative skills during our fight earlier led me to believe that she wasn't. How could six years be enough to prepare someone to make the right decisions for an eternity? If humans needed 18 years to learn to live on their own, surely a vampire that lives until the end of time needed more time for childhood. I was not sure how much more time, and I could be wrong about more than 18 years but I felt there would be a moment to re-evaluate that situation later.

"We are going to have to take away her independence." I began to murmur to Bella about my plans and thoughts. Softly and quickly knowing not one human around us would even notice that I was speaking, Alice would but she was busy. It seemed as if she was focusing on the outcomes of a few particular sports events that Jasper and Emmett wanted to gamble on, I shook my head. Making a mental note to scold her for encouraging them part of me thinking I should tell Carlisle about it.

_It's the same as when I watch the stock market. _Alice thought to me but kept concentrating. She had noticed the scowl on my face and I winked at her. Maybe it was sort of the same, but I would like to make sure they didn't over do it. It was still cheating after all. I kept talking to Bella, sharing my ideas of restricting Nessie's access to cash maybe implementing some type of allowance based on merit. It would do the girl some good to understand earning things instead of just having things. Bella was nodding agreeing with me, making additions or overruling my strictness as she deemed it necessary while still paying a great deal of attention to the lecture. It was good that one of us was paying enough attention. I would read over her notes later. Or Bella would just repeat the lecture for me.

The professor assigned a four-page paper comparing and contrasting a story from the McGuffy's Reader edition 1953 to something on the contemporary grade school reading list. I rolled my eyes at the tedious nature of the assignment as we walked out of class together, Bella and Alice at either side of me.

"Did you use the McGuffy reader's in school when you were little?" Bella asked me. I frowned down at her.

"I don't remember Bella, I am sure we could look it up. I was in grade school during the first decade of 20th century in Chicago so more than likely." I shrugged. Alice laughed.

"Don't ask me, I can't remember anything about being human either. I am sure that Esme used them, she grew up in Ohio." Alice commented.

"But none of you remember." Bella nodded.

"Do you remember anything?" Alice asked.

"It's hard for me to forget, remember I have many reminders still. But sooner or later I am sure that when those people who can remind me don't exist." I shrugged. I squeezed Bella's hand, it was hard for her to think of that her parents or friends like Mike and Angela might no longer be around. I sat in the passenger seat of the car on the way back to the house this time, and Bella leaned her head onto the shoulder of my seat.

"Do you see our plan working Alice?" Bella asked as I played with the radio, trying to find a station that wasn't playing some absurd collection of noises while talking about some crude subject matter. I watched Alice search her mind, try to see anything but murky darkness and she saw nothing. Then she seemed to change her focus onto Bella and I, catching glimpses of us but nothing in particular.

"I don't know." Alice shook her head exasperated by her lack of second sight.

"There is something I am wondering though." Alice added.

_Choice. _Was the only thing she was thinking, I frowned not understanding.

"Isn't it her choice in the end, Nessie's I mean about what way she decides to hunt?" Alice was saying her words slowly and not looking at either of us, worried of our reactions.

"Yes." Bella responded before I had time to even think of the question.

"It's her choice to give up her soul?" My voice had a slight edge to it and I narrowed my eyes at Bella.

"Of course it is Edward." She smiled patiently at me. "Just not right now. Right now is like asking a two year old if they want to eat a whole bag of candy."

Alice's bell like laughter filled the car. There was no more time to think about any of it as we reached the house and I was anxious to check in on Renesmee. The house was basically silent as we wandered in. Alice disappeared to find Jasper, tinkering away with some scale models in his study. Emmett and Rosalie were nowhere in the house, and Esme was sitting with Nessie and Jacob.

"She's doing homework hoping to please us." I whispered to Bella, chuckling at the child. I held open the door to Nessie's tower room for Bella and followed her in.

_Oh you're home. Do be calm, no more fighting Edward. It's rather unbecoming, and I don't think she is very responsive to it. _Esme smiled at me. I stared at her round face and smiling eyes and curtly nodded.

_Maybe come down and play the piano for a while, bring the baby. She should spend sometime outside of her room with her family. _Esme picked up her book that she had been reading, a romance novel and glided out of the room.

"Jacob maybe you should go home for a little while? Shower?" Bella teased Jacob. Renesmee didn't even look up from her homework. Faking concentration was not going to get her far. Jacob's eyes traveled to survey Nessie and then he focused on my face for a few minutes. I sighed and smiled for him, a sign of peace.

"You're welcome to come back tonight." I offered. He was apprehensive of the peace offering. "But you should check in with Seth and Leah. Leah must be worried and Seth is a bit of a slacker when you aren't around." I reminded him of his responsibility, his pack.

"Be good." I heard Jacob whisper to Nessie before he jumped out and shuffled out of the room.

_Be Nice. _He thought to me before leaving. Bella sat on the bed, petting Nessie who was still pretending to be scholarly. I stood my gaze fixed on Nessie, my arms over my chest, she would break her concentration before I would.

_Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. _

Woodrow's fourteen points? I frowned and paid more attention to make sure I was correct.

_Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for enforcement of international covenants. _

Yes. Woodrow Wilson's famous fourteen points, was she just reading her textbook? She was avoiding thoughts to not anger me or to distract herself.

"Renesmee, we have decided a few things." I spoke finally. She looked up innocently or as innocent as she could manage with the red flickering in her otherwise beautiful brown eyes.

"Yes daddy?" Her voice dripped with sweetness and I just shook my head.

"Princess we understand you are still a child, you still have things to learn." Bella started as she rubbed Nessie's back, much like she had done when she had been a sleeping babe on her chest.

"But I'm…" I held my finger up to my lips to silence her, though she finished the thought in her head for me.

"You are." I said forcefully. Before she could start arguing again I kept going. "The point is darling, as a child you have to learn the consequences to your actions."

"I'm still grounded?" Nessie sounded shock. I noticed in her thoughts that she had been under the impression that I had been acting under anger and would change my mind.

"You are." Bella responded for me. "There are a few restrictions to that, first off we would like all your credit cards." Bella removed her hand from petting Nessie and held it out expectantly.

"You can't be seriously?" Nessie looked at her mother's hand and then at my face.

_You are being serious. But what if I need money? _

"You will be getting a weekly allowance of forty dollars a week, after of course accomplishing a few chores around the house." Bella said as her fingers twitched impatiently.

"Chores?" Nessie almost snorted. We were doing the right thing there was no doubt in my mind now.

"Things like cleaning, weeding the garden, such things. You've seen all of us do them, its time you help with the upkeep of the house." I smiled at her discontent. She had pulled out all her credit cards from her wallet and I watched her take out one after another. She stopped at the Black American Express, lovingly stroking it.

_Surely they don't want this one as well, how am I going to buy things on forty dollars a week? _She thought to herself.

"Even that one." I sighed. Her eyes pleaded with me, but I was firm in my decision and shook my head. Bella took the card without waiting for her to pull it out.

"We also decided you are going to have to wait until after your next birthday to learn to drive." I said. She gasped this time.

"But Rosalie got me a mustang! And Jacob finally finished building me a motorcycle!" She cried.

"And they will both still be there after your next birthday." I growled at her thoughts.

_You can't keep me from driving. I will. You won't. Rosalie won't let you. _

"Renesmee." Bella whispered to her.

"Nessie, I am in no mood to be argued with, you will take your punishment as you deserve." I stated.

"For what! For going against your precious diet?" She screamed at me. My daughter was so impertinent.

"Renesmee Carlie. You listen here, our choice not to drink human blood is a decision based on respecting the life around us. The life we came from, the life that is half of what you are. All of what Jacob is, you of all of us should want to protect that more than we do." Bella was growling, a low deep noise.

I looked at my wife, my Bella with surprised eyes. That was one of the first times I had heard her use our daughter's full name.

Nessie had no back talk, no sarcastic retort, instead she seemed deep in thought. Thoughts of Jacob, of our family, of us were vibrant in her mind, passing like movie stills.

"Yes ma'am." She whispered. Strange. That was unlike her. Maybe we were getting through to her. She curled her knees up to her chest and she seemed scared for a bit. We were silent, the three of us together in her room for some time just existing. I noticed that Nessie was crying all of a sudden and I rushed to her side. My arms protectively wrapped around her body and I picked her up. I cradled her crying body but instead of her arms staying curled protectively close to her chest they moved with purpose. Her delicate fingers found my shirt and clutched at the fabric, it was as if the child was holding on for dear life. I was surprised by her sudden attachment. As I held Nessie close to me a specific memory resurfaced.

I saw myself looking up at Bella, the perfection of immortality freshly upon her then I saw myself sitting beside her. I looked strained, worried much like I felt now. I was instructing Nessie to be good, pressing my fingers to her lips and warning her not to bite her grandfather. She had sent the memory as I knew from the abruptness in which the memory ceased. I looked down at her confused, why had she shown me that moment.

_ I disobeyed you. _She thought as she buried her face into my chest. Bella had wandered towards us, one of her hands was now sitting comfortably around my waist and the other was curled around Nessie.

_Do you still love me? _She thought to me and I laughed.

"Of course princess. Always." I winked at Bella, knowing she understood what was happening in the moment. I cradled Nessie in my arms until she fell asleep, once her eyes closed I could hear Esme calling to me to play from downstairs. We walked down, my sleeping baby and the love of my existence, in perfect harmony for the first time in a few months. Entering into the large living room, Rosalie held out her arms to me to accept the sleeping Nessie.

"Bella?" I asked.

"Yes that's fine, I want to watch you play." She smiled at me. I placed the sleeping child carefully into Rosalie's arms and I strolled across the room. Emmett and Jasper were bent over the computer having a silent fight by clicking furiously on which car was better. They were trying to decide what car Emmett would purchase, a fight I was thinking about joining but Bella pulled me towards my piano again. Alice was perched on the windowsill sketching a new pair of shoes she was designing. Carlisle sat reading the latest medical journal with Esme by his side, embroidering a handkerchief for Rosalie.

I sat at my piano, Bella next to me, and just let my fingers decide what to play. Running the tips of my fingers along the ivory keys, closing my eyes to let whatever music came to me first. I started with Bella's lullaby, the ending being where I wanted to be. The inescapable sad ending of the musical notes that always came with it. Before I could dwell on the sad ending for too long, Bella led my fingers along their usual path into a different melody the one for Jacob and Renesmee. The tune was lighter, happier, it almost conveyed the warmth of Jacob into the room.

_She loves this melody. It's her favorite thing in the whole world. I might have to learn how to play it one day. _Jacob was commenting to me, I looked up to see him join the fight that Jasper and Emmett were still having. This was my family and this moment of familial tranquility was well earned after our days of turmoil. These were the moments that made forever worth facing, even with all its troubles.

"Nessie is dreaming about you." I murmured into Bella's ears as my fingers played without my help. Her hair caressed my chin and I smiled kissing her neck.

"She dreams about me the most." Bella smiled at me.

"Maybe Jacob." I murmured. She huffed a bit and I laughed.

"Jealous?" I asked still kissing her neck. She turned to catch my lips and I honored her request. My playing stopped momentarily.

_Oh don't stop. _Esme sighed.

_Get a room. Or maybe a cottage, we all know it will still be standing in the morning. _Emmett thought to me. I made a note to make sure Emmett knew his bit about the cottage was getting old.

_Play my song again. _Nessie commanded as I saw her lashes flutter awake. I started playing her song again. She was going to be unhappy enough for the few weeks I felt I might as well give her some happiness. Bella laced her fingers into mine, playing along with me. Bella leaned her head against my shoulder as she played with me.

"Let's do this forever." She sighed to me.

"I love you." I whispered.

"I think we all know how I feel." Bella laughed.

We were going to do this forever. Though this moment of calm might be short lived, as my rebellious daughter stirred in her sleep. But she would outgrow rebellion enough one day until then we would take advantage of the calm before each storm.

The End


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